






! 









THE NINE UNKNOWN 


OTHER BOOKS BY 
TALBOT MUNDY 


Rung Ho 

King—of the Khyber Rifles 
Guns of the Gods 
The Winds of the World 
Hira Singh 
The Ivory Trail 
The Eye of Zeitoon 
Told in the East 


Her Reputation 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


By 

TALBOT MUNDY 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright, 1923, 1924 
By Talbot Mundy 



Printed in the United States of America 


PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 
BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
BROOKLYN, N, Y. 

_ MAR 26 ’24 

©C1A778574 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I “I Cut Throats with an Outward Thrust!” i 
II “Produce but the Gold, Thou Portuguese!” ,. . 18 

III Light and Longer Weapons! . ,. . .. .... . . 35 

IV “Here’s Your Portuguese!” . ... w w . 58 

V “The Nine’s Spies are Everywhere!” £ „ 71 

VI “They Fled before Me!” . . . . .. . . 89 

VII “Shakesperean Homeopathic Remedy!” 103 

VIII “He is Very Dead!” . . , . , ^ 122 

IX “Silence is Silent.” . . . „■ •. ...... 135 

X “Can’t Hatch a Chick from a Glass Egg.” . . 150 

XI “Allah! Do I Live, and See Such Sons?” ... . 171 

XII “I am Dead, but the Silver Cord is not Yet Cut.” 188 

XIII “I Felt the Tingle of the Magic and Fell 

Unresisting.” .. . ,. .. . 213 

XIV “We’ve Got Your Chief!” . ,. . . 222 

XV “Abandon Can’t and Cant All Ye Who Enter 

Here!” ..248 

XVI “Sahibs, that is a True Speech !” ... .. ... . 266 

XVII “There Will be No Witnesses—Say That and 

Stick to It!” ......... ..286 

XVIII “He Has Whatever She Had!” . . . ., ,. . 300 

XIX “Once When They Who Keep the Secrets—” ,. 313 
XX “Nevertheless, I Will Take My Sword with 

Me!” ..326 

XXI “My House is Clean Again !” . ,. . ,. . . . 335 


















THE NINE UNKNOWN 




THE NINE UNKNOWN 

CHAPTER I 

“i CUT THROATS WITH AN OUTWARD THRUST!” 

I HAD this story from a dozen people, or thirteen if you 
count Chullunder Ghose, whose accuracy is frequently 
perverted. One grain of salt is never enough to add to 
the fat babu’s misstatements, although any one who for 
that reason elected to disbelieve him altogether would be 
just as wide of the mark as the credulous who take 
what he says at face value. Chullunder Ghose should be 
accepted warily. But the others are above suspicion, as 
for instance King, Grim, Ramsden, the Reverend Father 
Cyprian, and Jeremy Ross, all of whom regard the truth 
from various points of view as economical. 

Chullunder Ghose considers all truth merely relative 
at best—likes to be thought a liar, since under that cloak 
he can tell diluted truth unblushing. Consequently he 

1 











2 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


is the only one whose real motive for taking part in thi9 
magnificent adventure is not discoverable; he scratches 
his stomach and gives a different reason every time he is 
asked, of which the likeliest is this: 

“You see, sahib, bad luck being habitual is bad 
enough, but better than absolutely no luck. Consequently 
I took chances, trembling much, stirring innate sluggish¬ 
ness of disposition with galvanic batteries of optimism, 
including desire to keep wolf from door of underfed 
family and dependents. ,, 

He certainly took chances, and he appears to have 
survived them, for I had a letter from him only a week 
ago begging the favor of a character reference and 
offering in return to betray trade secrets in the event of 
his securing the desired employment. 

Then there is Leonardo da Gama the Portuguese, 
who is dead and tells no tales; but his death corroborates 
some part of what he said to me, for one, and to others 
as will presently appear. His motive seems to have been 
mercenary, with the added zest of the scientist in search 
of a key to secrets, whose existence he can prove but 
whose solution has baffled men for generations. 

The Reverend Father Cyprian, past eighty and cus¬ 
todian of a library not open to the public, aimed and 
still aims only at Hindu occultism. He regards it as the 
machinery of Satan, to be destroyed accordingly, and 
it was for that reason he gave King, Grim, Ramsden and 
some others access to books no human eye should other¬ 
wise have seen. For Father Cyprian collects books to be 
burned, not piecemeal but in one eventual holocaust. 

Some lay brother peculiarly conscious of a sin ap¬ 
pointed Father Cyprian by will, sole trustee of a pur- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


3 


chasing fund, hoping thus to rid the world of the key to 
such evil as the Witch of Endor practised. For half a 
century Father Cyprian has been acquiring volumes sup¬ 
posed long ago to be extinct, and it was possibly the last 
phase of his beleaguered pride that he hoped instead of 
burning them piecemeal to make one bonfire of the lot 
and go to his Maker directly afterward. 

In that case even pride may serve appropriate ends; 
for if he had burned the books as fast as acquired, King 
could never have studied them and drawn conclusions. 
He took King, Grim, Ramsden and certain others into 
confidence subject to a stipulation; there were and are 
still said to be nine super-books whose contents total up 
the almost absolute of evil. King and his friends might 
use what Cyprian already had, and might count on his 
counsel and assistance; but if they should come on any 
of the nine books, those were to be Cyprian’s to be 
burned along with all the others. 

They were not to study the nine books, if obtained, 
and above all they were not to reveal their contents to 
any outsider; for Cyprian’s purpose was, and is, to abol¬ 
ish the very memory of those books’ existence and the 
deviltry they teach, or are supposed to teach. (For some 
say they teach wisdom.) But they might make what 
use they cared to of information picked up on the side, 
and they were free to deal with individuals as circum¬ 
stances and their own discretion might dictate. Father 
Cyprian, in fact, cared and cares not much for conse¬ 
quences. He believes in cutting off the cause, and he is 
sure those nine books are the key which, if thrown away, 
will leave the cause of necromancy impossible to redis¬ 
cover. So much for him. 


4 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


[Jeremy Ross came laughing on the scene, laughed 
with gay irreverence all through the piece, and still 
laughs, no more inclined to take life seriously than when 
he faced the Turks in the three-day fight at Gaza, shar¬ 
ing one torn blanket with a wounded Turk and destroy¬ 
ing his chance of promotion by calling a British colonel 
^ “Algy” to his face. On the other hand, he is as uncon¬ 
querably opportunist as when he tramped Arabia, lost, 
and survived by means of a reputation for performing 
miracles. 

Jeremy’s admitted motive was desire to learn more 
tricks and their underlying principles. He is convinced 
that even the “rope trick, so often told of and so invar¬ 
iably unconfirmed, in which a Hindu is supposed to 
climb a rope into the air and disappear, is simply the 
result of well-trained ingenuity. 

“A chap who knows how can do anything,” says 
Jeremy, and he proposed to learn how all the Indian 
tricks are done. 

The motives he did not confess, but which were just 
as obvious as the laugh on his lips and the sunburn on 
his handsome face, were loyalty to Athelstan King and 
Grim and Ramsden, a kind of irresponsibility that makes 
him plunge for amusement into every game he sees, and 
a bedrock willingness to fight every combination of men 
and circumstances for the right to be his own master. 
He has no use whatever for orders from “higher up,” 
for swank, eyewash, stilts, inherited nobility, or what is 
known as statecraft. 

“A diplomat’s like me,” says Jeremy, “only I call 
mine tricks and he calls his statesmanship.” 

It was enough that King and Grim had winded th« 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


5 


stronghold of secret tyranny. Instantly Jeremy was 
game to make a pitched fight and a picnic of the business 
of destroying it; and he was quicker than either of them 
at penetrating the outer screen of commonplace decep¬ 
tion. He got along remarkably well with Father Cy¬ 
prian, in fact, astonishingly well, all things considered. 

James Schuyler Grim is the protagonist of peace 
where there is no peace. His passion is to introduce two 
pauses in the strife of men where only one was formerly, 
and so little by little to give some sort of new millennium 
a chance. Arch-pragmatist is Grim. He holds men's 
lives, his own included, as worthless unless at work, and 
his highest expression of friendship is to pile task on task 
almost to the breaking point. He, too, resists interference 
from “higher up,” but without Jeremy’s turbulence and 
with much more wisdom—nearly satanic at times; which 
is one reason why Jeremy dbes not always mock him to 
his face. 

Jeremy does mock Athelstan King, because King is 
of the seventh generation in the British army and re¬ 
spects accordingly the little odds and ends of precedent 
and custom that to the Australian resemble idol-worship. 
Jeremy was a trooper. King was a colonel but is now 
employed by the same multi-millionaire who furnishes 
supplies for Grim and Ramsden; in fact, he took Jeremy’s 
place, for Jeremy can not abide the power of purse¬ 
strings and would rather juggle by the roadside for his 
daily bread than yield to any man on the ground of 
surplus cash. 

Jeff Ramsden is another independent, who rather 
prides himself on being slow of wit and heavy on his 
feet, whereas he is really a solid thinker, building argu- 


6 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


ment on argument until he is convinced, and setting one 
foot down before he prospects with the other. He is 
stronger physically than almost any two normally de¬ 
veloped athletes, but it would probably break Jeff Rams- 
den’s heart to lose his comfortable savings, whereas Jer¬ 
emy loses his last cent as cheerfully as he would win 
the other man’s. 

Then there are Narayan Singh, and Ali ben Ali of 
Sikunderam, soldiers of fortune both, the one a Sikh with 
pantheistic tendencies and the other a Pathan with seven 
sons. At any rate, Ali ben Ali is pleased to admit they 
are his sons, and none denies that he fought and slew 
the indignant legal owners of the mothers, although there 
are cynics in the crag-top villages who vow that Ali 
flatters himself. The mothers’ statements (there were 
seven) made for the most part under duress shortly be¬ 
fore death were not considered trustworthy evidence in 
the land that Ali comes from. 

Ali has enemies, but is a man, whatever else; and 
perhaps the highest compliment ever paid Narayan 
Singh is that Ali ben Ali of Sikunderam respects him and 
would think three times before challenging the Sikh to 
fight, even if a mutual regard for Grim and King did not 
put quarreling out of the question. They are awfully 
disrespectful of each other’s gods, but came to an early 
understanding on the basis propounded by Narayan 
Singh after a night-long argument: 

“If your ridiculous Allah objects to my opinions why 
doesn’t he smite me? I challenge him! As for thyself, 
Ali ben Ali of Sikunderam, thou art worth a dozen Al- 
lahs, being less cowardly, more generous, and not afraid 
to stand up and be seen!” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


7 


“It is a pity about you, Narayan Singh,” Ali ben Ali 
answered nodd/ing tolerantly. “I shall make a friend of 
you in this world only to see you torn by devils in the 
next. However, that is Allah’s business, who is Lord of 
Mercies.” 

“Who is a big joke!” Narayan Singh corrected. 

“He will turn thee into worms!” warned he of Sikun- 
deram. 

“Then I will gnaw the big thing’s belly!” said the 
Sikh. 

They agreed to postpone the debate until the next 
world and to be stout allies in this—a plan which if 
followed universally would abolish a deal of waste of 
time. 

“For if I slew you, or you slew me,” said Ali ben Ali, 
“there would only be half our manhood left!” 

And that was a point on which they could agree at 
once, for neither of them had a poor opinion of himself, 
any more than either cared a rap for Grim’s and King’s 
idealism. What they chose to follow were the men, they 
being men, and like attracting if not like at least its 
tribute. 

But they were also attracted as much as Chullunder 
Ghose was by the glamour of the unknown quantity and 
the lure of fabled treasure; the babu being all acute 
imagination and alarm, they all adventurous. 

Surely ancient sciences meant nothing to them 1 ; yet 
it was pursuit of ancient science and of nothing else that 
brought the twelve together, and that might have added 
the thirteenth if the number thirteen had not justified its 
reputation by proving fatal to da Gama the Portuguese. 
And that was no pity, but for scientific reasons. 


8 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


He drank too frequently and inexpensively, and 
washed too sparingly to be good company. His appe¬ 
tite in all ways was a glutton’s, drink included, and he 
took his erudition as he did champagne or beer or curried 
anchovies, in gulps. 

Nor was he nice to look at—saffron, under shiny 
black hair, with a pair of coal-black eyes whose whites 
were yellow and red with long debauch—short—stout— 
asthmatic—dressed always in rusty black broadcloth and 
occasionally white drill pants, with black boots tied with 
broken laces. His face was seamed and lined with tales 
untellable and knowledge unfit to be known. His finger- 
ends were swollen and his nails close-bitten. His shirt, 
which might have been a petticoat for stripe and color, 
bulged through the gap between his pants and vest, in¬ 
creasingly untidy as the day progressed, and he hitched 
his pants at intervals. He had a little, black imperial 
beard that only half-concealed a chin cloven not by na¬ 
ture but by some man’s weapon. The cleft had the ef¬ 
fect of making him look good-humored for a second 
when he smiled. The smile began with a sneer malig¬ 
nantly, passed with a peculiar melting moment through 
an actually pathetic phase, and ended cynically, showing 
yellow eye-teeth. He had no idea whatever of making 
himself pleasant—would have scorned himself, in fact, 
for the attempt if he had ever tried it—and yet he 
blamed the world and did the world all the injury he 
could for refusing to love him. He always wore a round 
black hat like an English clergyman’s, and never took it 
off, even indoors, until he was seated, when he held it 
rolled up as if he kept his thoughts in it and was afraid 
of spilling them. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


9 


It was Chullunder Ghose who decoyed him into the 
office in the side-street off the Cbandni Chowk, which 
is the famous Street of the Silversmiths in Delhi, and a 
good street if you know what goodness in a street con¬ 
sists of. Men—all manner of men—go by. 

They had an office in a side-street, one flight up over 
& Maharatta drug-store, with the name “Grim, Ramsden 
and Ross” on a brass plate on the door. The next-door 
building was a warehouse for hides, hair, tallow, gum, 
turmeric and vicious politics, through the midlst of which 
they had access to a back stairs by arrangement. But the 
front stairway by which you reached their office was a 
narrow, steep affair between two buildings, littered with 
fruit-peel and cigarette ends, and always crowded with 
folk who used it as a sort of covered grandstand from 
which to watch the street or merely to sit and think, 
supposing that anybody could think in all that noise. 

You had to pick your way up-stairs gingerly, but 
going down was easier, because if you placed your foot 
flat against the back of a man’s head, and shoved sud¬ 
denly, he would topple forward and carry a whole row 
down with him, due to the fact that they sat cross-legged 
and not with their feet on the step below as Europeans 
would. 

Existence there would have been precarious, but for 
Narayan Singh, Ali ben Ali and Chullunder Ghose—the 
first two truculent and the third a diplomat. It is fash¬ 
ionable nowadays to show contempt for Westerners by 
pushing them off the sidewalk and making remarks in 
babu English that challenge reprisals; so that, even 
though King, Grim and Ramsden can disguise them¬ 
selves and pass for natives of the East, and Jeremy in 


10 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


plain clothes can make an Arab think he is an Arab in 
disguise, the firm's name on the brass plate would have 
been enough to start trouble, if it had not been so obvious 
that trouble would include a Sikh dagger, an Afghan 
tulwar, and the adder’s tongue of the least compunctious 
babu in all India. 

It was the babu’s tongue that drew da Gama past the 
door. He was afraid of it, in the same way that some 
politicians are afraid of newspapers, and it may be that 
he hoped to murder the babu as the simplest road to 
silence. All are agreed he was surprised and angry 
when Narayan Singh, swaggering down the narrow pas¬ 
sage, bunted into him as he stood hesitating and, picking 
a quarrel on the instant, shoved him backward through 
the office door. Inside he found himself confronted by 
the whole party, for Narayan Singh followed him 
through and locked the door at his back. 

He stood at bay, in silence, for a minute, showing his 
yellow teeth, his hands making the beginnings of a move 
toward his pockets and repeatedly refraining. So Ali 
ben Ali strode up to him and, taking him in one pro¬ 
digious left arm, searched him for weapons. He pulled 
out a long knife and a black-jack, exposed them, grinning 
hugely, in the palm of his right hand and returned them 
to their owner. There was no pistol. Then he pushed 
the Portuguese toward the office stool, which was the 
only seat unoccupied. Da Gama ^sat on it, putting his 
heels on the rungs, with his toes*turned outward, where¬ 
after he removed his round, black hat and rolled it. 

The others sat around the wall on bentwood chairs, 
or otherwise as temperament dictated, all except Father 
Cyprian, who had been accorded the desk and revolving 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


11 


chair in deference to age. Cyprian held the desk-lid 
raised, but lowered it suddenly, and at the noise da 
Gama started, stared a second, and then swore in Portu¬ 
guese between his teeth. None in the room understood 
Portuguese, unless possibly the priest. 

“You recognize me, I believe?” piped Cyprian, almost 
falsetto, his little bright eyes gleaming through the 
wrinkles and his mobile lips spreading and spreading 
away into a smile that advertised amusement and was 
certainly a mask. 

He has a face like a friendly gargoyle, full of human 
understanding and a sort of merry disdain that goes with 
it. 

“Keep to your trade of mumbling Mass! What do 
these others want?” the Portuguese demanded rudely. 
“I have nothing to do with priests!” 

His low-pitched asthmatic voice was an absolute con¬ 
trast to the other’s. So was his surliness. There was no 
connecting link between them but that one, swift, mo¬ 
mentary cloven lapse from hardness as the Portuguese’s 
face changed from one scowl to the next. But Cyprian 
recognized that and was swift, before the human feeling 
faded: 

“My friend,” he said, “it was you who tried to steal 
my library, and I have never sought to have you pun¬ 
ished, for I know the strength of the temptation-” 

“You are a miser with your books—a dog in a man¬ 
ger!” the Portuguese Ported. “You break your own 
law, which says you shall not hide light under a bushel!” 

“It is darkness that hides!” the priest answered with 
another of his expansive smiles. “It was you, my friend, 
who tried to murder me—a sin from which I only saved 



12 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


you by being one inch to the eastward of your bullet’s 
course.” 

“You lie like any other priest!” da Gama growled. 

“No, no. Not all of us are rash. In fact, we—we all 
of us are—are occasionally careful. Is this not the pistol 
that you tried to shoot me with?” 

He raised the lid of the desk again and drew out a 
surprising thing born of the law against carrying fire¬ 
arms. It was a pistol built of springs and teak-wood, 
nearly as clumsy as the old museum holster pieces but as 
able as a cobra to do murder at close range. Da Gama 
was silent. 

“My friend, I have not even blamed you,” the priest 
went on, his thin voice squeaking with the rust of years. 
“I have pitied you, and as for me you are forgiven. But 
there are consequences.” 

“What?” the Portuguese demanded, betraying, be¬ 
tween scorn and anger, once again that moment of hu¬ 
man feeling. 

“Something is required of him to whom so much has 
been forgiven,” the priest answered firmly. 

“What?” the Portuguese repeated. 

Jeremy reached for the pistol and began fooling with 
the thing, as pleased with its mechanism as he was im¬ 
patient of preliminaries. Ali ben Ali of Sikunderam drew 
out his own long knife and thumbed its cutting edge sug¬ 
gestively. 

“You for twenty-five, and I for fifty years have 
sought the same thing,” the priest said, speaking slowly. 
“You have taken one line, I the other. Mine is best, 
and now you must follow mine, my friend-” 

“For I cut throats with an outward thrust,” Ali ben 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


13 


Ali interrupted. “The point goes in across the wind-pipe 
and the knife’s heel separates the neck-bones.” 

It was horribly well spoken. Ali ben Ali failed in 
his youth for a Bachelor’s Degree but passed in rhetoric. 
Da Gama shuddered. 

“Peace!” commanded Cyprian. 

“For the present,” assented he of Sikunderam, stow¬ 
ing the knife away with its hilt projecting. For religious 
reasons he was careful not to show the alien priest too 
much respect. 

“What do you want?” da Gama asked. 

Father Cyprian reached into his desk and produced 
a little chamois-leather bag. Opening that he poured 
about thirty gold coins into his hand and held it out 
toward the Portuguese, whose eyes changed expression 
suddenly. 

“The balance of those,” said Cyprian, “and the nine 
books. You may have as much of the money as you can 
use, my friend), and you may have my share too, for I 
need none of it. But the books must be mine to do as 
1 choose with.” 

Da Gama went through all the motions of his smile 
and ended on the usual sneer. “No doubt! If you have 
the books you will need no money.” 

“I shall do as I please,” the priest answered, not 
choosing to argue that point. “Do you know whence 
these came ? Look at them.” 

He poured the coins into da Gama’s open hand, and 
the Portuguese’s dark eyes seemed to take fire from 
behind. None was of more recent date than a thousand 
years B. C., and one or two were of such soft gold that 
all the impression had been rubbed and squeezed away. 


14 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“The little bag—you know the little bag?” the priest 
asked, handing him that too. “You recognize it? Yes? 
You left that, you remember, with the money in it when 
you tried to shoot me, and my servant pulled your coat 
off. He would have captured you, but-” 

Da Gama smiled again, beginning and ending mean¬ 
ly, on a note of insolence, but passing inevitably through 
that momentary human stage. 

“But never mind,” Cyprian went on. “You may have 
them back, except the gun. My servant shall bring your 
coat. You have been forgiven. But where did you get 
that money? I must know.” 

“Yes, we must all know that,” agreed Ali ben Ali’s 
deep voice, and the Northerner drew his knife again, 
thumbing its edge with a kind of professorial apprecia¬ 
tion. 

Grim, dressed as a Punjabi, had sat watching da 
Gama’s face. Now he saw fit to betray that really it was 
he who was in charge of the proceedings. 

“You understand?” he asked “All that Father Cy¬ 
prian asks for is the books.” 

“And you?” da Gama demanded, sneering again. It 
seemed to be his policy to get on terms with strangers 
by provoking. “You care only for money?” 

Grim dug into the folds of his loose upper garment 
and produced a telegram from his employer in New 
York. 

Investigate and report on perpetual disappearance of 
specie in India. Meldrum Strange. 

He passed it to da Gama, who read it and cocked one 
eyebrow: 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


15 


“Your alibi ?’ 5 he suggested, pronouncing the word 
as if it were Portuguese, which for undiscoverable rea¬ 
sons made it more offensive. 

Grim ignored that. 

“We want to discover what has happened to the bil¬ 
lions of dollars’ worth of gold and silver that has been 
won from the earth during the thousands of years since 
mining was first commenced. The cash in circulation 
doesn’t account for one per cent, of it. Where is the 
rest?” he explained. 

“What if you find it?” asked da Gama. 

“If you help, you may have as much of it as you can 
use,” Cyprian interposed. 

“Father Cyprian wants the nine books,” Grim re¬ 
peated. “He wants to destroy the knowledge that has 
enabled certain unknown men for thousands of years to 
drain the world of its supply of gold and silver. I wish 
to discover where the gold and silver is. You may have 
enough of it if your help amounts to anything.” 

“I also desire to know where the gold and silver is!” 
remarked Ali ben Alii, from his seat on a cushion in a 
corner. “I, too, desire enough of it!” he added, sticking 
his long knife point-downward in the floor and laying 
the palm of his hand on the hilt to stop its trembling. 
“My heart quivers as the knife does!” 

It was easy to believe him. At that moment his 
gray-shot beard framed avarice and not much else, ex¬ 
cept the ruthlessness that gave it energy. His eyes con¬ 
tained the glint of morning on the Himalayan crags. 
Ali ben Ali of Sikunderam saw many visions at the 
mention of the magic name of gold and silver. 

“I cut throats with an outward thrust!” he added 


16 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


meaningly, pulling up the knife again and glancing at 
the Portuguese. 

Then Athelstan King took a hand. 

“The same men who own those nine books keep the 
secret of the gold and silver coin/’ he said, speaking 
downright as his way is. 

“How do you know?” da Gama sneered. 

“Because like you I have devoted years to the pur¬ 
suit,” King answered; and in his eyes there was the sort 
of steely gray strength of the hunter who looks up-wind 
and into sunlight. 

“Pursuit?” Da Gama was at his usual occupation, 
sneering. “Did you catch much?” 

“You, at any rate!” King answered; and Ohullunder 
Ghose observed the opportunity for self-advertisement. 

“His honor having given orders to this babu—said 
babu having followed same,” he smirked, wiping sweat 
from his hairy chest with a handkerchief, perhaps to call 
attention to the diligence with which he had labored. 

Then he chose to emphasize and illustrate dexterity 
by throwing down the handkerchief and catching it be¬ 
tween his toes. 

“You’re simply a prisoner,” said King, looking 
straight at the Portuguese. 

“This,” said Narayan Singh, on the floor beside Ali 
of Sikunderam, “is the writing of one Dilji Leep Singh, 
who swears that he helped you steal books out of a tem¬ 
ple, but was never paid for it. He will be a witness if 
required.” 

Narayan Singh laid a paper on the floor just within 
range of da Gama’s eye, and it was that that really 
turned the trick. He had imagination. He could see 
defeat. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


17 


“You may have a fair share of the money, if we 
find it with your assistance,” Grim reminded. 

“And I have forgiven you,” added Cyprian. 

“But I cut throats with an outward thrust,” said Ali 
ben Ali of Sikunderam. 

“Oh, what is it you want ?” the Portuguese exclaimed, 
throwing up his clenched fists suddenly—theatrically. 
“Am I briganded and held to ransom after twenty-five 
years ? All right! I surrender! Write down your 
promises, and I will tell!” 



CHAPTER II 

^PRODUCE BUT THE GOLD, THOU PORTUGUESE!” 

B UT they wrote no promises. It was da Gama, des¬ 
perate to the point of daring them to take his life 
and never sure that Ali ben Ali or the Sikh would not 
accept the challenge, who wrote down terms on a half¬ 
sheet of paper. 

“Hell! There! My minimum! Without you sign 
that there is not a torture in the universe severe enough 
to make me talk!” 

“Same being Portuguese opinion, anarchistic pos¬ 
sibly! This babu risking personal humiliation volunteers 
advice—be skeptical!” remarked Chullunder Ghose, 
rolling off-center so as to reach the door of a small 
cupboard. 

He pulled out a gallon jar of whisky and shoved it 
along the floor sufficiently noisily to attract da Gama's 
notice. Father Cyprian walked out, saying nothing, and 
Narayan Singh relocked the office door behind him. 

18 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


19 


“Advice not being asked, same tendered deferen¬ 
tially, which is—” said the babu, pausing—“give him one 
drink, subsequently withholding remainder of contents 
of gallon jar pending answers to questions. No water 
on any account!” he added, pursing up his lips. 

The sweat broke out on da Gama's forehead. He 
was no hero, but was gifted with imagination. As long 
as the priest stayed he had banked on that unbegged 
forgiveness, calculating, too, that the priest would toler¬ 
ate no illegal violence, in his presence. But Cyprian was 
gone, and he looked around the room. They all knew, 
and he knew they knew, what the whisky torture meant 
to a man of his disposition. He shoved the crumpled 
half-sheet into his pocket and capitulated. 

“What do you want to know ?” he demanded hoarsely. 

“Give him one drink,” ordered King, and then, when 
the Portuguese had tossed that down his throat— 

“Where did you find those coins?” 

“In the ruins of a temple. I can not describe the 
place.” 

“Why not?” 

“It has no name.” 

“You can lead us to it.” 

Da Gama nodded. 

“Yes,” he said. “I can lead, but you will find noth¬ 
ing. That is, I removed the gold—you see it. You may 
search a thousand years. I brought it all. I am intelli¬ 
gent—me. You have not the intellectual requirements. 
Yet I tell you, I know nothing—nothing! Only Cy¬ 
prian the priest is capable, for he has books. But the 
fool thinks they are wicked, and he won’t tell! He is a 
dog in a manger—a miser—a-” 


20 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Never mind him. Tell us what you know,” King 
interrupted. 

“I know that none of you will live unless you cease 
from interference with the Nine Unknown!” 

“Put that whisky back into the cupboard!” Grim 
ordered. 

Chullunder Ghose obeyed. It was stifling in the 
office and for the second time the Portuguese capitu¬ 
lated. 

“There is only one course worth trying,” he said, 
trying to moisten his lips, which had grown dry at the 
mere mention of the whisky jar. His tongue looked a 
size too large. “You must subsidize me—support me. 
You must get those books from Cyprian and let me 
read them. You will all fail otherwise. I am the 
only man who ever lived who carried the search for the 
Nine Unknown the little way that even I have gone. I 
am the only one who found anything. They have made 
several attempts on my life. What chance would you 
have to escape them? Whisky please.” 

Grim shook his head. 

“Then water!” 

“Earn your drink,” Grim answered. 

“Tshaa! Well—it doesn’t matter what I tell you! 
You will be useless without me. You lack the required 
intelligence. The problem is vertical, not horizontal. 
All the clues are cut off—blind from underneath. There 
—you do not understand that. What is the use of tell- 
ing you? The Nine Unknown are at the top. That is 
a simple statement. Nine individuals, each independent, 
collectively forming a self-perpetuating board—each 
known to all the other eight but to no other individual 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


21 


on earth—not known, that is to say, to any other person 
in the world as being a member of the Nine. You un¬ 
derstand that? 

“Each of the Nine, then, appoints nine others known 
only to him, and each of Whom supposes his principal to 
be merely a servant of the Nine. They think the orders 
they receive from him are second-hand orders, passed 
along. Thus, there are eighty-one first lieutenants, as it 
were, who think themselves to be second-lieutenants. 
And each of those eighty-one employs nine others, in 
turn known only to himself, making seven hundred and 
twenty-nine third lieutenants, each of whom knows only 
eight, at most, of his associates, but all whom are at the 
service of the Nine, whom they know neither by sight 
nor name. You follow me? 

“Every one of the seven hundred and twenty-nine 
third lieutenants has nine men under him, of his own 
choosing, each of whom again has nine more. So the 
chain is endless. There are no clues. If you discover, 
say, a fourth lieutenant, all he knows is the identity of 
the individual who gives him orders and, perhaps in 
addition to his own nine subordinates the names of eight 
associates, none of whom knows more than he. 

“When one of the Nine Unknown dies, the other 
Hght elect an individual to take his place. None but 
they even guesses that a vacancy was filled. None, ex¬ 
cept the Nine, knows who the Nine are. Each first, 
second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth lieuten¬ 
ant is responsible for nine; and they to him. Nothing is 
written. No muster-roll.” 

“How old is this organization?” King demanded. 

“How old is India?” the Portuguese retorted. “How 


22 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


many dynasties have thought they ruled? They levied 
taxes and they all paid tribute to the Nine! If the 
money the Nine have received during all those ages had 
been invested at compound interest the whole world 
would be so awfully in debt that people would under¬ 
stand what has been happening and might possibly wake 
up. But there is wisdom in the books the Nine make 
use of—one book to a man, each book dealing with a 
branch of wisdom. They have simply hoarded money, 
letting the nations use gold as it is won from mines and 
only taking tribute of principal, not interest. Do you 
believe that?” 

King, Grim, Ramsden and Jeremy nodded. Ramsden 
read aloud from a memorandum book: 

“Last year the production of silver alone amounted 
to more than a hundred andi sixty million ounces. The 
East absorbed more than a quarter of that-” 

“And is howling for silver again!” said King. 
“Where did forty million ounces disappear to? There 
is some in circulation—not much; ornaments account for 
some of it; a little has been hoarded by the peasants, but 
it’s less in these days of high prices and taxes; where is 
the balance ?” 

“I have none of it, Lord knows!” exclaimed Chul- 
lunder Ghose, holding up both hands with pious resigna¬ 
tion. 

“Where did it disappear ?” said the Portuguese. 
“Here is some”— he shook the chamois-leather bag— 
“but all I found was leavings in a crack of a temple 
cellar, where they stored the tribute a thousand years 
ago.” 

“Nevertheless,” remarked Chullunder Ghose, “India 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


23 


continues swallowing gold and silver in measures of 
crores, that which is swallowed not reappearing in any 
discernible shape, contrary to teachings of political econ¬ 
omy, which being religion of West is probably poppycock 
possessing priests with check-books and top-hats. Where 
is gold and silver? That is whole point.” 

“Babylon had gold and silver,” said the Portuguese. 
“Where is it?” 

Jeremy took twenty sovereigns from his belt. (He 
always carries them, they constituting his uttermost re¬ 
serve, never to be spent, but to be bluffed with.) He 
jingled them from hand to hand as if their music inspired 
him. Da Gama went on talking: 

“Always India has imported gold and silver—always! 
But where is it? Some jewelry, but not much; the brace¬ 
lets of one generation are melted by the next. A very 
small percentage disappears from wear. Of course, there 
is a little lost. A little more is buried and forgotten. But 
the balance—the accumulated surplus of at least six 
thousand years—I estimate it as a heap as great as the 
pyramid of Gizeh! And where is it ?” 

Chullunder Ghose blinked. Ali ben Ali drew his 
knife and stuck it quivering in the floor again. Narayan 
Singh breathed sibilantly through set teeth. Jeremy 
palmed his twenty sovereigns in a pile, and they all dis¬ 
appeared except one, which was fascinating; he did 1 it 
again and again, and you couldn’t tell where the nineteen 
were until he caught them out of air in his left hand. 

“What became of the gold of Solomon?” da Gama 
asked. “He had so much of it. The records say men 
thought nothing of gold and silver during his reign. He 
died, and the gold went—where? Some say Solomon 
himself was one of the Nine Unknown-” 



24 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Who says that?” King- demanded. 

“I for one!” da Gama answered. “But there are 
books. Ask Cyprian the priest. He has them. Where 
is the gold the Spaniards and the Portuguese shipped 
home from South America and Mexico? Where is all 
the product of the Rand and of Australia? They took 
seven billions of dollars’ worth of gold and silver from 
the Comstock—just one reef in Nevada—yet tell me: 
how- much gold and silver is there in the world to-day ? 
The greatest hoard—greater than all other known hoards 
put together—is in the United States Treasury, and it 
doesn’t amount to a hat-full compared to the total that is 
known to have been mined in the course of history! 
Where has the rest disappeared?” 

“That’s what we’re asking you ” Grim warned him; 
and Ali ben Ali drew the handle of his knife back and 
let go so that it hummed like a thing thrown. 

“I must see the books that Cyprian the priest has,” 
da Gama answered, looking at the knife and shuddering. 

“They give no clue to the treasure,” King answered. 

Da Gama actually laughed, a thing he hardly ever 
did. It sounded like something breaking. Jeremy 
laughed too, like breaking water, and palmed all twenty 
sovereigns with one sweep, instantly showing the same 
hand empty. 

“The hand deceives the eye!” said Jeremy. “And 
I've seen written stuff that fooled a banker’s clerk!” 

“No book can fool me!’ said da Gama, slapping his 
forehead and showing the cloven weakness as he smiled. 
“I know Sanskrit as Max Muller never dreamed of 
knowing it! Show me the books of Cyprian the priest 
and I will tell you where the treasure is!” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


25 


“You’re talking rot!” said Jeremy. “If Father Cy¬ 
prian has the books and they contain the secret, why 
can’t he go straight and find the treasure? Eh? We 
wouldn’t waste whisky on you!” 

“Pardon me, but it is little whisky that you waste,” 
da Gama answered. “As for Cyprian, the man is blinded 
by fanaticism. He knows a little Sanskrit—just perhaps 
enough to pass for erudition among ignoramuses—but 
he will not read what he sees. He is purblind.” 

“I read what I saw, and I know more than a little 
Sanskrit,” King retorted quietly, but da Gama was more 
than ever cock-sure and sneered back at him. 

“If Cyprian the priest were not a fool,” he said, “he 
would have set his communicants to stealing books from 
me! For I have the keys to his books, and he can not 
read his without mine. And all my keys are good for 
is to fit the locks that he guards like a miser! Get me 
his books, and I will unlock their secrets for you in a 
week. In ten days I will show you such a heap of gold 
and silver as will make you mad! I wish to see you 
mad! Have no fear that I will disappoint you!” 

Nevertheless, there was not one man in the room 
who would have dared place Father Cyprian’s books in 
the hands of da Gama. 

“Let’s see; you have escaped the vengeance of the 
Nine how many years?” asked Grim, and da Gama 
laughed again. He saw the point. 

“Bring us your books, and you shall compare them 
with Father Cyprian’s,” said King. “Thereafter, the 
books are his, but you shall have as much as you can 
use of any gold and silver found.” 

Da Gama hesitated. He had intellect, and worked 


26 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


it—prided himself on that. Few of the human passions, 
except drink and avarice and infidelity, had any influence 
with him, so he reviewed the situation on its merits, being 
candid with himself. Like Grim, he sought no solace but 
results, and he would have wondered why Grim despised 
him, had he been aware of it. 

“I can not bring my books,” he said. “They weigh 
too much.” 

“We’ll carry them,” offered Jeremy. 

“Give me a drink,” da Gjima answered, nodding. It 
was obvious he agreed, with a proviso. 

The babu poured forth whisky into the office tumbler 
and presented it. Da Gama drank. 

“We should have an understanding,” he said, smack¬ 
ing his lips. “There was wisdom in the accumulation of 
gold and silver by the Nine. Don’t disregard that. It all 
has to do with the Kali Ytog* and its end that was pro¬ 
phesied six thousand years ago. The purpose is to 
cheapen money by the squandrous abundance of it-” 

“Krishna!” gasped Chullunder Ghose. 

“—to abolish capitalism—do you see ?” da Gama went 
on. “That will be the end of the Kali Yug. Capitalism 
is the age of darkness. To put in place of money—brains 
—intellect, that is the idea. To cheapen money by abun¬ 
dance, not of promises to pay, but of veritable gold and 
silver. Money being worthless, brains will count—in¬ 
tellect—you understand me? Have you intellect? No! 
Just habits! Have I intellect? Oh yes! But have I the 
reforming zeal? By no means! I am lazy. Let the 
world remain material and money-drunk; it suits me 
better! Can you accomplish anything without my intel- 


*The age of darkness referred to in Sanskrit writings. 



TJ IK NINR UNKNOWN 


27 


lcct? No indeed. You can not understand the Sanskrit, 
which is a language of conundrum#. You would turn 
the floods of money loose and create a havoc. Money 
would be worthless, and you no better off. In the books 
(be Nine Unknown possess is the only secret of how to 
prevent the havoc. It means high thinking, and that is 
hard work - too hard. I say, let us take advantage of the 
money, and not turn it loose. Let the Kali Yujf persist! 
Let us Ik*, rich—wealthy- affluent beyond the dreams — ” 
“Nay, nay! There is no affluence beyond my 
dreams I” said Ali, plucking at his knife. “I could use a 
million crorcs of gold and silver! I would buy the 
North and build a city— and raise a Ioshkar * such as 
Iskander's! — and—and speak not of millenniums! The 
world will bum my day out l Produce but the gold, 
thou Portuguese1” 

“Produce the books 1“ said Grim. 

The Portuguese got down from the high stool and 
leaned lvis back against it. 

“Are we agreed about the money?” he asked, looking 
from eye to eye for disagreement. 

11 is was that disposition. He would promise any¬ 
thing to men in whom the seed of disagreement lay, know¬ 
ing thal the future would hold opportunity. Hut his 
wandering eye was fascinated by Jeff Ramsdcn’s 
clenched, enormous fist. It seemed to symbolize. It was 
a totem. It did not stand for intellect, hut it was heart¬ 
break ingly honest, neither Latin in its attiude toward a 
problem, nor cynical, nor unjust—not too credulous — just 
aboveboard, and direct, and faithful. 

♦Army. 

tAJcxandcr the Great, 


28 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Produce the books I” repeated Grim. 

But he was dealing with the Latin temperament, 
which is not frank, reserving always little secret back- 
ways out from its commitments. 

“I will go and arrange it,” da Gama answered. 

Whereat Jeremy did three tricks in succession with 
a coin, as if by way of illustration. 

“I’ll go with you,” Ramsden volunteered. “I can 
carry quite a lot of books.” 

“No!” said the Portuguese, contriving to look scan¬ 
dalized in the way the Latin nations do when any one 
suggests a view of their back-yard. “There are my per¬ 
sonalities. I mean, I am not a pip-show. I go alone. I 
will arrange. You may meet me. You shall have the 
books.” 

“I have seven sons,” announced Ali ben Ali of 
Sikunderam, with his steel eyes focused on infinity, as if 
he were dreaming of his distant hills. 

“Well—they would, no doubt, do to carry books,” 
said the Portuguese, not understanding him. 

Whereat Ali ben Ali got up and left the room, Naray- 
an Singh locking the door again when he was gone. 

The others understood that perfectly. 

“Go and make your arrangements. Where will you 
meet us?” Grim demanded. 

“Do you know my quarters? There then,” said the 
Portuguese. “In an hour? No, that is too soon. I have 
books in one place and another. They must be collected. 
Come to-night.” 

“Leave one of those coins with me,” said Jeremy. 
“You shall have it back.” 

Da Gama made a gesture of magnificence and passed 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


29 


the chamois-leather bag. Jeremy tipped the contents 
into his hand, and chose, holding up a coin between his 
fingers. 

“What’s it worth?” he asked. “You can have it 
when you like, but-” 

“Write me a receipt for it.” 

Da Gama took a crumpled sheet of paper from his 
pocket and straightened it out, smoothing the reverse 
side. 

“This babu advising skepticism, as aforesaid! Safety 
first!” advised Chullunder Ghose, squirming nervously. 
“Same being ancient adage!” 

“I get you,” laughed Jeremy, and he waved aside the 
proffered sheet of paper, which da Gama pocketed again 
with an air of impudent indifference. 

Jeremy produced an English five-pound note from his 
pocketbook and wrote his name on it.* 

“Take it. I’ll trade back whenever you say.” 

The Portuguese looked disappointed but folded the 
five-pound note on second thought and slipped it in the 
lining of his hat. 

“So,” he said tartly, “I can not make use of that one, 
since it is offered as security. If your excellency had 
another of the same denomination, to be lent me pend¬ 
ing-” 

King pulled out his wallet at once and produced the 
equivalent of five pounds in Indian currency notes. The 
Portuguese accepted them, and they needed no signature. 

Gracas. To be repaid, senor. Then we meet to¬ 
night—at my—ah—hotel.” 

*A formality usually required before any responsible party 
will cash a stranger’s bank-note. 



30 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


He bowed magnificently, wholly unaware that the 
gesture made him look ridiculous. Narayan Singh un¬ 
locked the office door, and he backed out, continuing to 
bow, ignoring nobody, treating Chullunder Ghose to 
equal deference, the sneer on his yellow face giving the 
lie offensive and direct to his politeness, and he uncon¬ 
scious of it. He believed he made a most impressive 
exit. 

“He is thirsty—very thirsty. And he has five 
pounds/’ remarked Chullunder Ghose, as apropos of 
nothing as the Northerner’s remark had been about his 
seven sons. 

“Let’s look at the coin,” said Grim, and Jeremy 
passed it. 

Grim is a numismatist, if a job in a museum at the 
age of eighteen can make a man that. They sent him to 
the Near East subsequently on the strength of what he 
knew. He shook his head. 

“It’s the same one Cyprian showed us. I’ve never 
seen one, nor a reproduction of one like it. I believe it’s 
older than Cyrene. It’s not Indian—at least, that isn’t 
Sanskrit lettering—and it’s better made than any of the 
earliest coins we know about. That might be a coin from 
lost Atlantis!” 

“Pre-Adamite!” suggested Jeremy, but Grim was 
serious. 

“I tell you,” he answered as the door burst open and 
Ali of Sikunderam strode in, “we’re in touch with the 
riddle of all history—the riddle of the Sphinx perhaps! 
Oh Lord, if we can only keep in touch!” 

“By Allah, there are worse responsibilities than seven 
sons!” said Ali ben Ali, grinning. His grin sat crosswise 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


31 


of a black beard like sea-foam in the night. “If keeping 
touch is all your honor asks, then count it done!” 

“Does a watched pot boil? or a watched thief steal? 
or a watched door open? Your sons will interfere with 
him!” remarked Chullunder Ghose, scratching his nose 
with an action suggestive of thumbing it. 

“Bellyful of forebodings! They have orders not to 
interfere with him,” the Northerner retorted. 

“Simply to watch?” asked King. 

“Simply to watch him.” 

“Watch me!” said Jeremy. “Come close if you like.” 

He palmed the prehistoric coin in half-a-dozen ways 
in swift succession, making it move from hand to hand 
unseen, and plucking it at last from mid-air, said: 

“I’ll bet a fiver the Don steals a march on us.” 

“He will steal nothing!” 

Ali ben Ali of Sikunderam held up a hand as if de¬ 
claiming in the mosque. 

“My seven sons are the cleverest thieves that live! A 
thief can fool a non-thief, but not a professional. They 
are seven to one!” 

But Jeremy laughed. Whereat Ramsden, bearded 
like the bust of Anthony, unclenched his fist and let go 
the burden of his thoughts. He was a prospector by 
profession, used to figuring in terms of residue. 

“Forty million ounces!” he exclaimed. “Do you know 
what only one million ounces a year, say, for six thou¬ 
sand years would mean—how many trains of box-cars it 
would take to move it? It would need a fleet of ocean 
liners! Talk of secrecy’s a joke!” 

“Nine Unknown having kept said secret for six 
thousand years!” Chullunder Ghose retorted. 


32 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“And whose is the money by right?” asked Grim; 
that being the kind of poser you could count on him for. 

“The fighter’s—the finder’s!” shouted Ali of Sikun- 
deram, and Narayan Singh agreed, nodding, saying 
nothing, permitting his brown eyes to' glow. And at that 
Chullunder Ghose looked owlish, knowing that the sol¬ 
dier wins but never keeps; sacrifices, serves, eats prom¬ 
ises, and dies in vain. He did not tell all he knew, being 
a rather wise civilian. He sighed—Chullunder Ghose 
did. 

“There possibly may be enough for all of us!” he 
said, rolling his eyes upward meekly. 

Then Cyprian returned from strolling in the Chandni 
Chowk with that incurious consent of crowds conferred 
on priests and all old men—between the hours of indig¬ 
nation. 

“You didn’t hurt him? Children, you didn’t hurt 
him?” he demanded. “Did he drink a little too much? 
Did he talk?” 

King and Grim repeated what had happened, Cy¬ 
prian smiling, shaking his head slowly—possibly because 
of old age, yet perhaps not. At eighty years a man 
knows how to take advantage of infirmity. 

“The long spoon!” he said. “The long spoon! It 
only gives the devil leverage! You should have kept 
him here.” 

Ali ben Ali flared up at that, Koran in mind along 
with many other scriptures that assail the alien priest. 

“My sons—” he began. 

“Are children, too,” said Cyprian. “I credit them 
with good intentions.” 

“They are men!” said Ali, and turned his back. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


33 


Then Jeremy, who has no reverence for any one or 
anything, but two men’s share of natural affection, took 
Cyprian by the arm and coaxed him away to lunch at a 
commercial club, promising him a nap on a sofa in a 
corner of the empty cloakroom afterwards. The osten¬ 
sible bait he used was an offer to introduce a man who 
owned an ancient roll of Sanskrit mantras; but it was 
Jeremy’s own company that tempted; Cyprian leans on 
him, and seems to replenish his aging strength from the 
Australian’s superabundant store—a strange enough con¬ 
dition, for as religion goes, or its observances, they are 
wider than the poles apart. 

“All things to all men, ain’t you, Pop!” said Jeremy. 
“Come and eat curried quail. The wine’s on ice.” 

“And there you are!” remarked Chullunder Ghose, 
as the two went out, illustrating the “thereness” of the 
“areness” by catching a fly on the wing with his thumb 
and forefinger and releasing it through the open window, 
presumably unharmed. “Matters of mystery still lack 
elucidation, but ‘the wine’s on' ice!’ How Anglo-Saxon! 
Wonderful! United States now holding greater part of 
world’s supply of gold, and India holding total invisible 
ditto, same are as plus and minus—so we go to lunch! 
I dishonestly propose to issue bills of exchange against 
undiscovered empyrean equity, but shall be voted down 
undoubtedly— verb. sap. as saying is—brow-beaten, sat 
upon—yet only wise man of the aggregation. Sell stock, 
that is my advice! Issue gilt-edge scrip at premium, and 
pocket consequences! Sell in U. S. A. undoubtedly, re¬ 
siding subsequently in Brazil. But there you are! Com¬ 
bination of Christian priest, Sikh, fanatical Moslem, free¬ 
thinker, agnostic, Methodist minister’s son and cynicalist, 


34 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


is too overwhelming’ for shrewdness to prevail. Myself, 
am cynicalist, same being syndicalist with opportunist 
tendencies. I go to tiffin. Appetite—a good digestion 
—a siesta. Sahibs —humbly wishing you the same— 
salaam!” 

Chullunder Ghose, too, bowed himself out backward, 
almost as politely as the Portuguese had done—indubit¬ 
ably mocking—giving no offense, because, unlike the 
Portuguese, he did not sneer. 



CHAPTER III 

LIGHT AND LONGER WEAPONS! 

I N THEIR day the Portuguese produced more half- 
breeds per capita than any other nation in the world; 
there are stories about a bonus once paid for half-breed 
babies. Their descendants advertise the Portuguese of 
Goa without exactly cherishing the institutions of the 
land that gave them origin. They have become a race, 
not black nor white, nor even yellow, but all three; 
possessed of resounding names and of virtues that offset 
some peculiarities; not loving Goa, they have scattered. 
A few have grown very rich, and all exist in a no-man’s 
land between the rival castes and races, where some 
continue to be very poor indeed. Others are cooks, 
stewards, servants; and a few, like Fernandez de Men¬ 
doza de Sousa Diomed Braganza, keep hotels. 

His was the Star of India, an amazing place with a 
bar and a license to sell drinks, but with a separate en- 

35 



36 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


trance for people ridden by compunctions. It was an 
ancient building, timbered with teak but added to with 
sheets of corrugated iron, whitewashed. Some of the 
upper rooms were connected with the cellar by cheap iron 
piping of large diameter, up which those customers who 
had a reputation to preserve might pull their drink in 
bottles by a string. Still other pipes were used for whis¬ 
pering purposes. In fact the “Star of India Hostelry” 
was “known to the police,” and was never raided, it being 
safer to leave villains a place where they thought them¬ 
selves safe from observation. 

As happens in such cases, the Star of India had a 
respectable reputation. Thieves only haunt the known 
thieves’ dens in story books. It was no place for a 
white man who insisted on his whiteness, nor for Delhi 
residents, nor for social lions. Nevertheless, it was 
crowded from cellar to roof with guests belonging by 
actual count to nineteen major castes, including more 
or less concealed and wholly miserable women-folk. The 
women in such a place who keep themselves from contact 
and defilement suffer worse than souls in the seventh 
pit of Dante’s hell. 

Nine out of ten of the guests were litigants in from 
the country, waiting their turn in the choked courts, tol¬ 
erating Diomed’s hospitality because it was cheap. The 
farce of caste-restrictions could be more or less observed. 
Intrigue was easy. You could “see” the lawyer of the 
other side. And as for thieves and risks, where are there 
none? The tenth in every instance was undoubtedly a 
thief—or worse. 

There lived da Gama, pure blooded Portuguese, 
greatly honoring the half-breed by his presence. Like 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


37 


the caste-women, da Gama kept within the stifling walls 
by day as a general rule. But, again as in the women’s 
case, his nights were otherwise. They went to the roof 
then, where such little breeze as moved was hampered 
by curtains hung on clothes-lines to make privacy. He 
went to the streets, and was absent very likely all night 
long, none knowing what became of him, and none suc¬ 
ceeding in entering his locked, large, corner room. 

That night King, Grim, Ramsden and Jeremy went 
to Diomed’s hotel to keep their tryst with da Gama. They 
were dressed, except Jeremy, as Jats—a race with a 
reputation for taking care of itself, and consequently 
seldom interfered with; surly, moreover, and not given to 
answering strangers’ questions. Jeremy wore Arab 
clothes, that being the easiest part he plays; plenty of 
Arabs go to Delhi, because of the agitation about the 
Khalifate, so he excited no more comment than the other 
three. 

Mainly, in India, the religions keep apart. But that 
is where the Goanese comes in. He acts as flux in a sort 
of unacknowledged way, currying favor and abuse from 
all sides. There were in Diomed’s Star of India hotel 
not only Sikhs and Hindus, but bearded gentry, too, from 
up Peshawar way, immensely anxious for the fate of 
women-folk they left behind them, but not so respectful 
of a Hindu’s matrimonial prejudices. 

So the roof was parceled into sanctuaries marked by 
lines of sheeting, each stifling square in which a lantern 
glowed—a seraglio, crossing of whose threshold might 
lead to mayhem; for nerves were on end those murderous 
hot nights, and lawsuits had not sweetened dispositions. 

To the Northerners the quartering of that roof by 


38 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


night was pure sport, risk adding zest. They were ar¬ 
tists at making dove-cotes flutter—past grand masters of 
the lodge whose secret is the trick of making women coo 
and blush before their husbands’ eyes. And not even an 
angry Hindu husband takes chances, if he can help it, 
with the Khyber knife that licks out like summer light¬ 
ning in its owner’s fist. So there were doings, and a 
deal of wrath. 

King, Grim, Ramsden and Jeremy found da Gama’s 
room and drew it blank. There was a key-hole, but it 
was screened on the inside by a leather flap that yielded 
when pushed with a wire without giving a view of the 
room. Some one—there was always some one lurking in 
a corner in the Star of India, possibly a watchman and 
perhaps not—volunteered the information that the “ex¬ 
cellency sahib” might be on the roof. 

Fernandez de Mendoza de Sousa Diomed Braganza, 
sent for, denied having a pass-key to the room or any 
knowledge of its occupant’s movements. He, too, de¬ 
liberately non-committal, suggested the roof and, decid¬ 
ing there was no money to be made, began to be rude. 
So Grim offered him fifty rupees for one look at the 
inside of da Gama’s room. 

“There is nothing in there,” Diomed insisted. 

Grim raised the offer to a hundred and then pretended 
to lose interest, starting away; whereat the Goanese 
chased all possible informers out of the passage, pro¬ 
duced an enormous key, and pushed wide the two-inch 
teak door that was supposed to keep da Gama’s secrets. 

“I told you there was nothing in there!” he said, pock¬ 
eting Grim’s money. 

He was right to all intents and purposes. There 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


39 


were a bed, one chair, a- little table, half-a-dozen empty 
shelves, and a cheap old-fashioned wardrobe, from which 
such garments as. da Gama owned had been thrown out 
on the floor. For the rest, a dirty tumbler, two empty 
bottles, a carafe, pens, ink, paper, a dilapidated dictionary 
and some odds and ends. 

“Where are his books ?” Grim* asked. 

“Gone!” said the Goanese unguardedly. 

“Then there were books!” 

“That is to say your excellency, sahib —how should 
I know? Are you spies for the police? If so-” 

Grim showed him another hundred-rupee note. 

“I am a poor man,” said Diomed. “I would like your 
honor’s money. But I know nothing.” 

The eyes of a Goanese are like a dog’s, mild, meek, 
incalculably faithful; but to what they are faithful is his 
own affair. He is likely not faithful to the world, which 
has broken trust with the half-breed too often for the 
shattered bits to be repaired. He was afraid of some¬ 
thing—some one—and too faithful to the fear to take 
any liberties. 

Nevertheless, the room was dumbly eloquent. It had 
been raided recently by men who were at no pains to 
conceal the fact. Even the pockets of the clothes were 
inside out. 

“How many men came?” Grim demanded. 

“Sahib — bahadur —your excellency’s honor—I do not 
know! Are you spies for the police?” he asked again, 
and then smiled suddenly at the absurdity of that, for 
the police don’t argue with hundred-rupee notes. “I will 
die rather than say a word!” he continued, and crossed 
himself. 



40 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“You know Father Cyprian ?” asked Jeremy in Eng¬ 
lish, so unexpectedly that the Goanese stampeded. 

“You must all come out! I must lock the door! You 
must go away at once!” he urged. “Yes, oh yes, I 
know Father Cyprian—an old man—veree estimable— 
oh, yes. Go away!” 

“Take my tip. Confess to Father Cyprian! Let’s 
try the roof,” said Jeremy; and as it was no use staying 
where they were the others followed him. 

“You see,” said Jeremy over his shoulder, pausing on 
the narrow wooden stairs, with one hand on the rail, 
“if he goes and confesses to Cyprian, Cyprian won’t tell 
us, but he’ll know, and what’s in a man’s head governs 
him. Better have Cyprian know than none of us.” 

They emerged on the roof into new bewilderment, 
for there were sheets—sheets everywhere, and shadows 
on them, but no explanation—only a pantomime in black 
and white, exaggerated by the flapping and the leaping 
lights. Somewhere a man sang a Hindu love-song, and 
an Afghan was trying to sing him out of countenance, 
wailing his own dirge of what the Afghan thinks is love 
—all about infidelity and mayhem. 

“That’s one of Ali’s seven sons,” said King, so Grim 
cried out, and the man came, swaggering between the 
sheets and breaking down a few as his elbows came in 
contact with the string, leaving a chattering rage in his 
wake that pleased him beyond measure. Nor was it one 
of the sons at all, but Ali of Sikunderam himself. 

“Where is the Portuguese?” King asked him. 

“My sons have him in view. I don’t know just now 
where he is.” 

“Where are they?” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


41 


“That's just it. I don't know. They were to report 
here one by one, as each watched him for a' distance and 
then turned him over to another." 

“And none has returned." 

“No, none yet." 

“What have you been doing?" 

“By Allah! Quarreling with Hindus. If you sahibs 
had not come there is one who might have found his 
manhood presently and made sport-" 

“Have you watched da Gama's room?" demanded 
King. 

“Nay, why should IP Who should watch a bat's 
nest! I have held the roof, where my sons may find 
me. 

“Then you don't know who, or how many men went 
to the Portuguese's room?" Ramsden asked him. 

“Ask the Prophet! How should I know! You heard 
me say I kept roof," he retorted. He had a notion that 
Ramsden was a subordinate who might be snubbed, be¬ 
cause he said less than the others. 

“Are your sons as wide-awake as you are?" Ramsden 
asked; and Jeremy, seeing his friend’s fist, drew deduc¬ 
tions ; he whistled softly and stood aside. 

“My sons are——" 

“The Seven Sleepers!" Jeff suggested, finishing 
the sentence for him; which was cartel and defiance in 
the raw code of Sikunderam, although Ramsden hardly 
knew that yet. 

He learned it then. Ali whipped his knife out and 
sprang, being due some education too. 

The knife went whinnying through the air and 
pierced a sheet, where it knocked a Hindu lantern out 



42 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


and was recovered presently. Before a hand could in¬ 
terfere or a word restrain them Ali and Ramsden were 
at grips. The hairy Northerner within the space of ten 
grunts lost his footing and began to know the feel of 
helplessness; for Ramsden’s strength is as prodigious as 
his calmness in emergency. 

As easily as he had wrenched the knife away Jeff 
whirled the Afghan off his feet and shook him, the way 
a terrier shakes a rat, making his teeth rattle and a 
couple of hidden knives, some cartridges and a little 
money go scattering along the roof—shook him until all 
the kick was out of him—shook him until his backbone 
ached and even his desperate fingers, weakening, ceased 
from clawing for a hold. 

Then, holding him with one hand by the throat so that 
he gurgled, Jeff set him on his feet, reserving his other 
fist for such necessity as might arise. 

“This had to come,” he said. “Now—you know Eng¬ 
lish—are we friends or enemies?” 

He let go with a laugh and shoved Ali back on to his 
heels, ready to grip again if the other should choose 
enmity. 

“By Allah! Wait until my sons learn this!” gasped 
Ali, rubbing the throat under his beard where Jeff’s 
thumb had inserted itself. 

“I will lick them two at a time when their turn 
comes. Now's your turn. What’s your answer?” 

Ali looked in vain for a hint of sympathy. The others 
stood back, giving the man of their own race full oppor¬ 
tunity. There was nothing for Ali ben Ali to do but ca¬ 
pitulate or fight. He did not stomach either course 
contentedly. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


43 


“If I say friend you will think I am a coward,” he 
retorted. 

“If you say enemy, I will know you are a fool!” said 
Ramsden, laughing; and that was additional cause for 
offense, for whatever you do you must not laugh when 
you speak of weighty issues with Sikunderam. 

“You laugh at me ? By-” 

Ramsden realized his error in the nick of time. Sik¬ 
underam would submit to being thrown off the roof rath¬ 
er than be laughed at. 

“I jested with the thought that you could be a fool,” 
Jeff answered. 

It was lame, but it just limped. It gave the North¬ 
erner his chance to back down gracefully. 

“By Allah, I am friend or enemy! Nothing by halves 
with me!” said Ali. “I am not afraid of life or death, so 
take your choice!” 

“No, your choice,” Jeff answered. 

“Mine? Well, I have enemies and by Allah a friend 
is as scarce as an honest woman! Let these be witnesses. 
I call you friend!” 

“Shake hands,” said Ramsden, and Ali shook, a little 
warily because of the strength of the grip he had felt. 

“You have the best of the bargain,” he said, striving 
to grin, not finding it too easy, for he passed in his own 
land for a man who brooked no insult. “You are one man 
and I eight, for I have seven sons!” 

“If they're included,” answered Jeff, “that saves my 
thrashing them!” 

“They are included, for the sake of thy great thews,” 
said Ali. “Now they are yours as well as mine. Your 
honor is theirs, and theirs yours. We become nine!” 


1 


44 THE NINE UNKNOWN 

“Nine again!” laughed Jeremy. “If any one were 
superstitious-!” 

Jeff thought of a superstition, and of All’s knife that 
had gone slithering through the sheet and smashed a 
lamp. The Northern knife is more than weapon. It is 
emblem, sacrificial tool, insignia of manhood, keeper of 
the faith, in one. Jeff set out to find the knife and give 
it back, doing the handsome thing rather more effectively 
because of clumsiness. 

Seizing a handful of the Hindu’s- slit sheet, he tore 
the whole thing down, disclosing two inquisitively angry 
women and a man. The man was stout, and could not 
speak for indignation, but was not so bereft of his senses 
that he did not know the value of a silver-inlaid Khyber 
knife. 

Jeff threw the sheet over the women, solving that 
part of the problem with accustomed common sense, and 
solved the other with his toe, inserting it under the in¬ 
dignant Hindu, who was exactly wide enough of beam 
to hover the whole weapon under him diagonally as he 
sat still with his legs crossed. Jeff seized the long knife, 
picked up a corner of the bobbing sheet, pushed the Hin¬ 
du under it to join his women-folk, and offered the knife 
to Ali, hilt-first. 

“Thou art my brother!” exclaimed Ali, minded to 
grow eloquent. Emotion urged him to express his funda¬ 
mental creed, and the easiest thing in the world that min¬ 
ute would have been to start him slitting Hindu throats. 
“Together thou and I will beard the Nine Unknown!” 
he boasted. “We nine will show the rest the wav! By 
Allah-” 

He was working himself up to prodigies of boasting, 




THE NINE UNKNOWN 


45 


to be followed certainly by equally prodigious feats, for 
that is how swashbuckling propagates itself; and no mis¬ 
take is greater than to think swashbuckling is unimpor¬ 
tant; the world’s red history has been written with its 
sword-points. 

“Thou and I-” 

But there came interruption. One of his sons arrived, 
striding like a Hillman up the stairs and touching noth¬ 
ing with his garments, as a cat can go through under¬ 
growth. A young man, with his beard not more than 
quilling out. 

“Now we shall know!” said Ali, and King took the 
youngster’s elbow, swinging him into the midst, where 
he stood self-consciously. 

“Where is the Portuguese?” King asked him. 

“The Portuguese?” 

Ali of Sikunderam, magnificently posing, scratched 
his beard and grew increasingly aware of anti-climax as 
the meaning of the question was explained. The young¬ 
est of the seven sons with his spurs to win and no more 
than a murder yet to his credit seemed to be lagging be¬ 
hind opportunity—forgot—was stupid. 

“Oh! Ah! Yes. That little yellow man—him with 
the little black beard and the black coat—da Gama—him 
you mean ? How should I know where he is ? Oh yes, I 
followed him a little way. But there were others, who 
left this roost with him, carrying books and rolls and 
things like that. One beckoned me and ordered me to 
carry books. Hah! He was a Hindu by the look of him, 
—a man in a yellow smock. Having received my answer, 
which was a good one, he acknowledged his mistake and 
paid me a compliment. He said he had not understood. 


46 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


He had been told that porters and dependable guards 
would come, and had mistaken me for a porter. He asked 
my forgiveness, standing in mid-street with his arms full 
of musty books—what sort of books? Allah! How 
should I know! Not a Koran among them, you may be 
sure of that!— I wasn’t interested in his books— He 
said that men would soon come from a house in the next 
street, who would seek to kill him, so would I go to that 
house—he described it to me, and' an evil place it is— 
and obstruct the men who came out, quarreling if need 
be? Well—that was a man’s work, and I went. I have 
just come from there.” 

“What of da Gama? What happened? Did you see 
the Portuguese?” 

The questions came like pistol-shots in several lan¬ 
guages—English, Punjabi, Pushtu, Hindustanee. 

“No. I don’t know what became of the Portuguese. 
There was a woman 1 there—inside. I followed her in. 
Men came later, and I hamstrung one of them! When I 
can find my brothers we will all go to that house, and 
there will be happenings!” 

There was nothing to be said. Not even Ali spoke 
a word. The youngster went rambling on, inventing 
things he might have said and deeds he might have done 
if he had thought of them at the time, until it slowly 
dawned on him that there was something lacking of en¬ 
thusiasm in his audience. Ali did not even trust himself 
to utter a rebuke, and none else cared to. The vibrations 
of bitter disappointment—if that is what they are—made 
themselves felt at last, and the young man backed away, 
explaining—to himself—to the night at large: 

“How should I have known? The man said he would 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


47 


carry books, and would I do the dangerous work ? Am I 
a coward ? How could I refuse him ? And besides-” 

There came two others of the seven—older men— 
hard breathing, breaking out in sweat, and anxious for 
news of Abdullah the youngest. They had seen nothing 
of the Portuguese at all. In accordance with a plan—a 
“perfect” plan as they explained it—they had waited in 
the appointed shadows to see the Portuguese go by. 
There were only six streets he could take, and they had 
watched each one, leaving the youngest to tag along be¬ 
hind the Portuguese and act as communicating link. 
Whichever way the Portuguese should take, the brother 
whom he passed would follow; and Abdullah, the young¬ 
est, would run to inform the others. The plan was per¬ 
fect. The Prophet himself could not have devised a 
better one. 

But Abdullah had not come. And another man had 
come, who said Abdullah was lying belly-upward of a 
knife-thrust in another street. So. They went to see, 
Suliman first finding Ahmed, so as to have company and 
help in case of a brawl. Not finding Abdullah they had 
come back. 

“There is Abdullah,” remarked Ali dryly. “Beat 
him!” 

Which they did. Like the immortal Six Hundred at 
B'alaclava, theirs not to reason why. They beat him to 
the scandal of a whole community that bivouacked on one 
roof, and rival roofs with no such violence to entertain 
them cat-called comment to and fro, casting aspersions on 
the house and good name of Fernandez de Mendoza de 
Sousa Diomed Braganza, who could not endure that in 
silence, naturally. He came up on the roof to investigate. 


48 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Running into King and cannoning into Grim off 
Ramsden, Diomed recognized the strangers who had in¬ 
vaded his hotel, paying money for unprofitable answers, 
and undoubtedly not sent by the police. That was 
enough. The stranger is the man to turn on, because 
the crowd is sure to back you up. Besides, he had their 
hundred rupees, which probably exhausted that source of 
revenue—and the dry cow to the butcher, every time! 

Striking an attitude that would have cheapened Hec¬ 
tor on the walls of Troy with his straight black hair 
abristle like a parokeet’s crest, Diomed Braganza called 
on the “honorable guests of his hotel” to “come and throw 
robbers off the roof,”—a dangerous summons on a hot 
night in a land where passion lies about skin deep and 
nearly all folk have a bone to pick with Providence. 

There had been enough North country horse-play, 
and enough meek tolerance for once. The women’s 
voices chattered like a hennery aroused at night, and the 
men responded, from instinct and emotion, which com¬ 
bine into the swiftness and the fury of a typhoon. 

“I am your servant! I have tried to make you com¬ 
fortable ! These ruffians are too many for me!” shouted 
Diomed. “Come and help me, noblemen—my guests!” 

They came with a rush, the nearest hesitating under 
cover of the flapping sheets until they saw and felt pres¬ 
sure behind them and the dam went down, not in a tide 
of courage but of anger with the racial rage on top, which 
is the swiftest of all, and the fiercest. 

That was no time to argue. Ramsden took Diomed 
by thigh and shoulder, raised him overhead, and hurled 
him screaming and kicking into the thick of the assault, 
to create a diversion if the half-breed had it in him. And 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


49 


he hadn’t! He had shot his bolt and served his minute. 
Three or four went down under his impact, but the rest 
ignored him as the spate screams past an obstacle. And 
there were knives—clubs—things thrown. Over and 
through and under all the noise there was a penetrating 
voice that prodded at the seat of anger: 

“They are spies! They are government agents! 
Bande 'Materam!”* 

Ramsden held the stairhead for the others to back 
down one by one, King dragging Ali ben Ali by wrist 
and neck to keep him from using his Khyber knife that 
according to his own account of it had leaped from the 
sheath unbidden. (Ali was not the first, at that, to blame 
his true reactions on to untrue circumstance.) And even 
so, King only held him as you hold a hound in leash, un¬ 
til the moment—which occurred when Grim and Jeremy 
fell backward down the stairs together, struck by a bed 
hurled at random; wooden frame and loose, complaining 
springs that whirred like the devil in action. King 
dodged to avoid the thing, and Ali cut loose to uphold the 
testy honor of Sikunderam. 

So there was a scrimmage for a minute at the stair¬ 
head that beat football, Grim and Jeremy returning, forc¬ 
ing their way upward to stand with their friends, and the 
others all in one another’s way as each insisted on re¬ 
treating last and all except Ali helped to plug the narrow 
exit. They had Ali’s sons in the midst of them, for pre¬ 
caution, but that arrangement did not last long. Ali’s 
Khyber knife was whickering and working in the dark a 
stride or two ahead, and some one reached Ali with a 
long stick, drawing blood. Ali yelled—not a call for help 


*Hail Motherland!—the slogan of the Indian nationalist. 



so 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


exactly, yet the same thing, “Akbar! Allaho akbar!” the 
challenging, unanswerable battle-yell of Islam, naming 
two truths, one implied—that “God is great” and that the 
witness of it means to die there fighting. 

Might as well have tried to hold a typhoon then as 
Ali’s three sons. There was one who had been beaten, 
with his pride, all raw, aspiring to be comforted in any¬ 
body’s blood. He broke first, but the other two were 
only a fraction of a second after him, and there was a 
fight joined in the dark a dozen feet ahead, where men 
hurled broken lanterns, bed-legs, copper cooking-pots, 
friend hitting friend—where a fool with a whistling chain 
lashed right and left—and answering the “Akbar! Ak¬ 
bar! Allaho akbar!” of Sikunderam there rose and fell 
the “Bande Materam!” of some one prodding Sikh and 
Hindu passion. 

“Hail motherland!” You can stir the lees of almost 
any crowd with that cry. Thought of retreat had to go 
to the winds as King, Grim, Ramsden and Jeremy hurled 
themselves into the fray to disentangle Ali and his illegiti¬ 
mates, if possible—as all things, of course, are possible to 
men whose guts are in the right place. 

Possible, but not so easy! It was dark, for one thing; 
all the lamps were smashed that had not been extin¬ 
guished by the women, and Ali had deliberately struck to 
kill at least a dozen times, using the quick, upturning 
thrust that lets a victim’s bowels out. There was blood in 
quantity that made the foot slip on the roof and, though 
it was impossible to see how many he had 1 hit—and his 
own count of a hundred was ridiculous—there was no 
doubt of the rage for retaliation. The men in front were 
yelling to the men behind for light and longer weapons. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


51 


and three or four came running with a pole like a pha¬ 
lanx-spear, while shouts from below announced that some 
had fallen off the roof. 

Another shout, worse, wilder, turned that shambles 
into panic in which women fought men with their long 
pins for a footing on the stair. 

“Fire!” And the acrid, stringing smell of it before 
the cry had died away and left one man—Grim—aware 
that he who had started the “Bande Mater am” and he 
who had cried “Fire!” were the same! It was the note 
of cynicism—the mechanical, methodical, exactly timed 
note—the note of near-contemptuous understanding that 
informed Grim. 

Not that information did him any good, just then. 
There was a rush of panic-stricken brutes, plunging 
deathward in the lust for mere life, screaming, stripping, 
scrambling, striking, tearing at the clothing of the ranks 
ahead; and the half-inch iron pipe that did for stairhead 
railing went down like a straw before it, so that men, 
women, children poured into the opening like meat into a 
hopper and there jammed, filling the jaws of death too 
fast! Others leaped on top of that, hoping to unplug the 
opening by impact, or perhaps beyond hope, crazed. There 
wasn’t anything to do that could be done. No seven men 
in all the earth could tame that rush—not even Ramsden, 
who fought like old Horatius on the bridge across the 
Tiber, and was borne back on his heels until he swayed 
above the street and saved himself by a side leap along 
the low parapet. 

Then the smoke came, billowing upward all around 
the roof, and a scream arose from the people jammed in 
the stairhead—song of a charnel-house!—hymn of the 


52 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


worst death!—and an obbligato made of crackling. Then 
the smell, as human flesh took fire, worse even than the 
screaming and the roar of flames! 

Through all that ran a bellowing—incessant—ever¬ 
lastingly repeated—on another note than the mob-yell 
from the street and the brazen gong of the arriving fire¬ 
men—penetrating through the scream and the increas¬ 
ing crash of timbers—giving a direction through the 
choking smoke as a fog-horn does at sea. 

“Jkrigrim! Oh, J-i-m-g-r-i-m! Oh, J-i-m-g-r-i-m! 
It is I—Narayan Singh! Come this way, J-i-m-g-r-i-m!” 

Over and over again, unvarying, on one note, nasal, 
recognizable at last as bellowed through the brass horn 
of a phonograph—the summons of a sane man in a sea 
of fear! 

Grim gathered the others. There was light now and 
a man could see, for the flames had burst the roof. 
Thirty or forty more of Diomed Braganza’s guests 
swooped this and that way in a herd like mercury on a 
tipping plate, and one cried that the bellowing through 
the trumpet was the voice of God! That was the end, of 
course. Fatalism multiplied itself with fear and they 
leaped, hand-in-hand some of them, some dead before 
they reached the street and others killing those they fell 
on. Sixty feet from coping down to pavement—plenty 
for the Providence that governs such things! 

“Jimgrim! Oh, J-i-m-g-r-i-m! Oh, J-i-m-g-r-i-m! 
It is I—Narayan Singh! Come this way, J-i-m-g-r-i-m! 

Grim took to his heels and the others after him, run¬ 
ning along the two-foot parapet because the roof was hot 
and smoking through—leaping the right-angle corner to 
avoid a flame that licked like a long tongue—making for 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


53 


the middle of the rear end, where the smoke blew back, 
away from them, and they saw a man like the spirit of 
the black night shouting through a brass phonograph 
horn thirty feet away from a roof across the narrow, 
street. 

“Jimgrim! Oh, J-i-m-g-r-i-m!” 

“Here we all are! What now, Narayan Singh!” 

“Sahib, there is a ladder below you! Reach for it!” 

Too low! Too late! The ladder lay dimly visible 
along a ledge ten feet below. They saw it as the roof 
gave in and a gust of flame scorched upward like the 
breath of a titanic cannon, illuminating acres. All the 
secret tubes for conveying drinks and information in the 
“Star of India” were carrying draft now. The core of 
the inferno was white-hot. King’s and Ali’s clothes be¬ 
gan to burn; the others’ were singeing. Narayan Singh’s 
voice through the brass horn bellowed everlastingly, em¬ 
phasizing one idea, over and over: 

“For the love of God, sahib , reach that ladder!” 

The ladder was out of reach. 

“I don’t cook good!” laughed Jeremy, amused with 
life even in the face of that death. “I’d sooner die raw! 
Anybody strong enough to hold my feet? Not you, Jeff 
—you take his—it calls for two of us. Hurry, some one!” 

Jeremy leaned on his stomach over the parapet. 
King seized the long Arab girdle, knotted that around his 
own shoulders so that the two of them were lashed to¬ 
gether in one risk, and laid hold of Jeremy’s heels. 

“Over you go, Australia! You belong down under!” 

Jeremy laughed and scrambled over. Ramsden laid 
hold of King’s ankles, setting his own knees against the 
parapet; and to the tune of crackling flame and crashing 


54 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


masonry the living rope went down—not slowly, for 
there wasn’t time—so fast that to the straining eyes in 
the street it almost looked as if they fell, and a scream of 
delighted dread arose to greet them. 

Jeremy reached the ladder, grabbed it, and it came 
away, adding its weight and awkwardness to the strain 
on Ramsden. 

“Haul away!” yelled Jeremy—not laughing now. 

The turn-table motion of the ladder in mid-air was 
swinging him and King. 

Jeff Ramsden’s loins and back and arms cracked as 
he strained to the load. The others, obeying Grim, held 
him by the waist and thighs to lend him leverage, Grim 
holding his feet, in the post of greatest danger at the 
rear, where the flame roared closer every second. 

“Quick, sahib! Quick!’’ came the voice of the Sikh 
through the brass horn. 

Ramsden strove like Samson in Philistia, the muscles 
of his broad back lumped up as his knees sought leverage 
against the parapet and King’s heels rose in air. (His 
legs would have broken if Jeff hadn’t lifted him high be¬ 
fore hauling him in.) Grim, unable to endure the heat 
behind, put an arm around Jeff’s waist and threw his own 
weight back at the instant when Jeff put forth his full 
reserve—that unknown quantity that a man keeps for 
emergency. The ladder and the living rope came upward. 
And the parapet gave way! 

It was Grim’s arm around Jeff’s waist that saved them 
all, for Jeff hung over by the thighs; the Afghans’ hold 
was mainly of Jeff’s garments, and they tore. The brok¬ 
en stone hit King and Jeremy, but glanced off, harming 
no one until it crushed some upturned faces in the crowd. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


55 


And Jeff’s task was easier after all without the stone to 
lean on. He did not have to lift so high. He could pull 
more. King, Jeremy and ladder came in, hand over hand. 

“Quick! Quick! Oh quickly, sahibs!” came the 
Sikh’s voice through the horn. 

But the heat provided impulse. There was only one 
way to get that ladder across from roof to roof. They 
had to up-end it and let it fall, trusting the gods of acci¬ 
dent, who are capricious folk, to keep the thing from 
breaking—they clinging to the butt to prevent its bounc¬ 
ing over. And it fell straight with four spare rungs at 
either end. But it cracked with the weight of its fall, and 
by the light of the belching flame behind them they could 
see the wide split in the left-hand side-piece. Some one 
said that Jeff should cross first, because his weight was 
greatest and the frail bridge would endure the strain 
better first than last. 

Jeff did not argue, but lay on the ladder and crawled 
out to where the break was, mid-way. Across the mid¬ 
way rung he laid his belly—then set his toes on the last 
rung he could reach behind him—passed his arms 
through the ladder—and seized with his hands the rung 
next-but-one in front. Then he tightened himself and 
the ladder stiffened. 

“Come on! Hurry!” he shouted. 

They had to come two at a time, for the last of the 
roof was going and they stood on a shriveling small pen¬ 
insular beleaguered by a tide of flame. The Afghans 
came afoot, for they were used to precipices and the 
knife-edge trails that skirt Himalayan peaks, treading 
along Ramsden’s back as surely as they trod the rungs. 
But King and Grim crawled, King last And it was when 


56 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Grim’s hand was almost on the farther coping, and King’s 
weight was added to Jeff’s midway, that the ladder broke. 

Narayan Singh had turbans and loin-cloths twisted 
through the rungs at his end long ago, and had a pur¬ 
chase around a piece of masonry. So only the rear end 
of the ladder fell to the street. King clung to Jeff’s waist 
while the other half swung downward against the oppos¬ 
ing wall, and the thrilled mob screamed again. Jeff, 
King and ladder weighed hardly less than five hundred 
pounds between them. They went like a battering ram 
adown the segment of an arc, spinning as the turbans up 
above, that held them, twisted. 

It was the spin that saved them—that and the mad¬ 
ness of Narayan Singh, who snatched at the ladder and 
tried to break its fall with one hand! Both circumstances 
added to the fact that the ladder broke unevenly, caused 
it to swing leftward. It crashed into the wall, but broke 
again above Jeff’s hands, and catapulted both men through 
the glass of a warehouse window, where Narayan Singh 
discovered them presently laughing among bales of mer¬ 
chandise. They shouldn’t have laughed. There were 
more than a hundred human beings roasted in the build¬ 
ing they had left. Maybe they laughed at the unsports¬ 
manship of Providence. 

Narayan Singh was deadly serious, though 
unexpectedly. 

“I watched the Portuguese! Sahibs. I thought these 
seven sons are not the princes of perfection they are said 
to be! They made a plan in that whispering gallery that 
you just left! But I kept my own counsel. I followed 
the Portuguese. I know where he went. The Portuguese 
has talked. The Nine Unknown are aware of danger! 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


57 


You are spied on. They knew you would come to this 
place. Some one in their pay set fire to the hotel, and 
said you did it! Their agents now are telling the mob to 
tear you in pieces! They say you are secret agents of the 
Raj, who set fire to the place because a few conspirators 
have met there once or twice! Sahibs, if you are caught 
there will be short argument! They saw you from the 
street. Listen! They come now! What shall we do?” 

“Do? Track the Portuguese!” said King. “How’s 
that, Jeff?” 

“Sure!” said Ramsden, something like a big dog in his 
readiness to follow men he liked anywhere, at any time, 
without the slightest argument. 



CHAPTER IV 


"here's your Portuguese!" 

T HEY escaped by way of the roof by means of the 
oldest trick in Asia, which is the home of all the 
artifices known to man. All thieves know it, and some 
honest men. You join in the pursuit. You call to the 
human wolves to hurry. You have seen the fugitive. 
You wave them on, answering questions with a gesture, 
saving breath to follow too, glaring with indignant eyes, 
impatient of delay, but overtaken—passed. So, falling to 
the rear, you face about at last and, while the wolves yelp 
on a hot trail in the wrong direction, you walk quietly in 
the right one—yours—the opposite—away. 

They found a stair down to the street through the 
house of a seller of burlap, who was edified to learn that 
they were, authorized inspectors. He obeyed their recom¬ 
mendation to shut his roof-door tight. They took some 
samples of his goods to prove, as they said, by laboratory 
58 







THE NINE UNKNOWN 


59 


tests that the fire risk in his house was nothing serious, 
which made him feel immensely friendly. And out in the 
street they became customers of the burlap-merchant, hur¬ 
rying home after a belated bargain—bearing samples—an 
excuse that let them through the fireline formed of regi¬ 
ments just arrived, whose business seemed to be to drive 
every one the way he did not want to go. 

So presently, behind the drawn-up regiments, they 
threaded a thinning crowd toward the north, leaving the 
tumult and the honking motor-horns behind. The streets 
grew dimly lighted and mysterious, to Jeremy’s enormous 
joy. His passion is pursuit of everything unconventional. 
They strode down echoing alleys where no European 
ever goes, unless there is a murder or a riot too high- 
tensioned for the regular police. They stopped and ate 
awful food in a place where sunlight never penetrated, 
drinking alongside surly ruffians, who sat on their knives 
in order to keep conscious of them all the time. 

The way they took led by taverns out of which the 
stink of most abominable liquor oozed—raw, reeking ul¬ 
lage with the King of England’s portrait on a label on the 
bottle—where women screamed obscenities and yelled in 
mockery of their own jokes—places where the Portuguese 
had led his night-life, and had not been loved. Time and 
again Narayan Singh, with a sheepskin coat hung loosely 
on his shoulder as a shield, peered into a den—sometimes 
opium, sometimes drink was the reek that greeted him— 
to inquire whether the Portuguese had headed back that 
way by any chance. Invariably he was cursed, and cer¬ 
tain gods were thanked, by way of answer. One could 
gather that da Gama was not liked even relatively in the 
places he frequented. 


60 


/ 

THE NINE UNKNOWN 

Narayan Singh, full of his office of guide, and proud 
of his accomplishment in having found and blazed da 
Gama’s trail, visited every haunt the Portuguese fre¬ 
quented, talking between-whiles. 

“It was here they sat, sahib —he and the man who 
gave orders to the others who carried the books. And the 
Portuguese told all about our meeting in the office, I lis¬ 
tening, pretending to be drunk—so drunk along the floor 
they all but trod on me! Da Gama desired to play you on 
a hook, saying he needed money from you. Therefore 
the other said—nay, sahib, I never saw him before, and 
don’t know who he is, but he wore yellow—the other said 
the Nine will give da Gama money, if he will go to a place 
he knows of, where he will discover it left in a bag for 
him. The Portuguese asked how should he believe that? 
and the other answered that neither the Nine nor any 
agents of the Nine tell lies for any reason; moreover, the 
other added that all you sahibs and your servants—by 
whom he meant Ali and his sons and me—will be roasted 
to death within an hour or two. So I rolled out of this 
} kana* into the gutter, which is cleaner, and as soon as I 
had watched da Gama to another place I ran to warn you. 
Let us only hope he has not escaped us between then and 
now.” 

“Can’t!” laughed Jeremy. “He’s no more than a shill¬ 
ing up a conjurer’s sleeve ! Process of elimination gives 
the answer.” 

So they harked along da Gama’s trail into a rather 
better quarter of the city, where the ladies of undoubtful 
reputation ply the oldest trade without severely straining 
any caste laws. Priests live fatly thereabouts. Whoever 


*A word meaning almost any kind of place. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


61 


entertains a Sikh, for instance, or Mohammedan, or Hin¬ 
du of a lower caste than hers, may regain purity for pay¬ 
ment—which is very shocking to the civilized, who only 
buy seats in the senate, or perhaps a title, or who “use 
their pull with the press” to hush up things the public 
shouldn’t know. 

There, in a rather wider street, in a house that had 
gilded shutters, they sat cross-legged on embroidered 
cushions vis-a-vis to a lady sometimes known as Gauri, 
which is a heavenly name. She was pretty besides in¬ 
quisitive, and the turquois stud in the curve of one side 
of her nose contributed a piquancy that offset petulance. 
Her vials of vituperation were about full, and she out¬ 
poured almost at the mention of da Gama’s name. 

Know him? Know that slime of adders stuffed into 
a yellow skin ? She wished she did not! But who were 
the gentlemen, first, who wished to know about him? 
Men whom he had robbed? Amazing! What a mystery, 
that such a pashu* as that Portuguese could win the con¬ 
fidence of any one and steal as much as one rupee! Yet 
he had robbed her—truly! Her! A lady of no little ex¬ 
perience— He had robbed her of a thousand rupees as 
lately as yesterday. He had laughed at her to-day! The 
beast had spent her fortune! Practically all her savings, 
except for a jewel or two. 

And he had robbed others! Although it served the 
others right! Vowing fidelity to her—the brute—he had 
intrigued elsewhere, as she had only just discovered, 
coaxing other women’s savings from them. What did he 
use the money for? To bribe the priests’ servants to 

*Unmitigated brute having neither soul nor conscience —a 
very comprehensive Hindi word. 



62 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


bring him old books out of temples—smelly old books full 
of magic and ancient* history! He said that if he can get 
the right book he can find so much money in one place 
that all the rest of the wealth in the world wouldn’t be a 
candle to it! She was to have a tenth of all that. She 
supposed he made the other women equally tempting 
offers. 

As a rajah on his throne might feel toward a dead dog 
on a dung-heap; so she felt toward da Gama! She wished 
the Lords of Death no evil, but she hoped they might 
have the Portuguese, nevertheless! He had- come that 
afternoon and laughed at her! She had asked him for a 
little of her money back, and he had mocked her to her 
face! He had boasted flatly that she would never see one 
anna of her money back, and had then gone, mocking her 
even from the street! 

Whereat Jeremy, adept at following the disappearing 
shilling, hinted to King in a whisper. So King made a 
suggestion, and the priestess of delight blew cigarette 
smoke through her nose in two straight, illustrative 
snorts. 

She—hide that pashu in her house—now—after all 
that had happened ? There was a day when she had hid¬ 
den him—a day born in the womb of bitterness, begotten 
of regret! How vastly wiser she would have been to 
leave him to the knives of the men he had robbed! He 
was always a thief. She knew that now, although then 
she had thought he was persecuted. 

King made another suggestion, launching innuendo 
deftly on the ways of jest as he accepted sherbet from the 
Gauri’s maid. She looked as if she wished the drink were 
poisoned, and retorted without any button on her rapier; 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


63 


“Thug! You would like to search my house to steal 
the Portuguese’s leavings! There is nothing! He took 
all! And it would cost me three hundred rupees to the 
priest to repurify the place if I let such as you go through 
it!” 

Now a fool would have taken her statement at face 
value, believing or disbelieving as the case might be, and 
learning nothing. A clever fool would have paid three 
hundred for the privilege to search, learning that the Por¬ 
tuguese was not there, but otherwise no wiser after it. 
Wisdom, yoked up with experience, paid attention to the 
price she quoted and, not liking to be cheated, doubled the 
price and made a game of it. For, although all cheat him 
who buys, and some cheat the gambler, the odds against 
the gambler are so raised already by the gods that some 
folk let it go at that. 

“Three hundred for the priest? I’ll bet six hundred 
you don’t know where the Portuguese is now!” said 
King. 

Her eyes snapped. 

“Tell for less than a thousand?” she retorted scorn¬ 
fully. “I am not a spy!” 

“But I am a gambler,” King answered. “I offered to 
bet. I will bet you five hundred you don’t know where 
da Gama is this minute.” 

“You said six hundred!” 

“Now I bet five. In a minute I reduce my stake to 
four. Next minute three-” 

“I have no money to bet with,” she answered. “Da 
Gama has it all!” 

“Yet, if you were betting on a certainty you wouldn’t 
lose, so you could afford to stake your jewelry,” King 



64 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


answered. “I will bet five hundred rupees against that 
necklace of pearls that you can’t tell me where the Por¬ 
tuguese is!” 

“Who would hold the stakes ?” she asked hesitating. 

That was a poser, but Ali of Sikunderam was ready 
for it. He drew forth his silver-hilted knife and made the 
blade ring on the floor. 

“You hold them!” he said, looking hard at her—up¬ 
wind, the way he was used to viewing the peaks of Sik¬ 
underam. “If my friend wins, I come to claim the stakes. 
I am old in the ways of women, and I come with this in 
my right hand! Only if you win you keep the stakes.” 

She judged his eyes, and understood, and nodded. 
King laid on the carpet five one-hundred rupee notes. 
She laid her necklace opposite. Ali of Sikunderam raked 
all the lot together with the point of his weapon and then 
pushed them toward her. She put on the necklace and 
folded the notes. 

“I could send my maid,” she said. “The place is in¬ 
describable.” 

But the maid of any such mistress as Gauri is more 
untrustworthy than treachery itself. Having nothing to 
lose, and the world before her, her eccentric trickery is 
guaranteed. 

“I deal with principals. I bet with you,” said King. 

“I can not go there! I am afraid to go there! It is 
too far!” exclaimed Gauri. “It was my maid, not I who 
followed him. She knows the way. I-” 

Ali of Sikunderam ran a thumb-nail down the keen 
edge of his knife, and Gauri shuddered, but it was Nara- 
yan Singh who voiced the right solution. He leaned over 
and touched the nearest of Ali’s sons, who was day- 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


65 


dreaming over the maid’s delightfulness—perhaps imag¬ 
ining her likeness in the Moslem paradise. 

“Two horses!” he commanded. “Instantly!” 

The youngster came to with a start and glanced at his 
sire, who nodded. King produced money. Gauri 
claimed it. 

“Let the owner of the horses send his bill to me!” she 
insisted, and nearly enough to have bought two horses 
disappeared into a silken mystery between her breasts. 

So Ali’s youngest went on an errand he could run 
without much risk of tripping up, but “instantly” is a 
word of random application and he was gone an hour 
before the horses stood incuriously at the door per¬ 
ceived by half a hundred very curious eyes; for the do¬ 
ings of a lady such as Gauri are of deeper interest than 
chronicles of courts. 

It was not until Ramsden came forth, bulking like a 
rajah’s bully, and the others formed up like the riff-raff 
hirelings who attended to the unprintable pursuits of 
aristocracy, that the crowd went its way to imagine the 
rest and discuss it over betel-nut or water-pipes. 

Gauri ceased expostulating when it dawned on her 
that she would ride escorted by nine assorted footmen. 
That is an honor and a novelty that comes to few of her 
position on the stairs of disrepute. And then, there was 
intrigue, that was meat and drink to her. There was the 
possibility—the probability of venomous revenge; and a 
bet to win, if no chance of her money back from the 
Portuguese. 

She began to try to stipulate before the hour was up. 

“If I find him for you, you must kill him!” she in¬ 
sisted. 


66 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“If you don't find him, you lose your necklace,” King 
retorted. 

“What if he tells you his secrets ?” she said suddenly. 
“The pashu will be afraid. He will tell the secret of the 
treasure! He has had ten thousand rupees of my money! 
You must tell me what he tells you-” 

She grew silent—looking—reading men and faces, as 
the third of her profession was. King’s eyes had met 
Grim’s and the glance passed all around the circle—not 
of understanding, but unanimous. They recognized a 
chance, and without speaking all accepted it. So King 
conceded terms: 

“Daughter of Delight,” he said, “if in obedience to 
us you help find treasure, you shall have your share of 
it.” 

“How much?” she demanded. 

But it is wiser, if you want to shorten argument, to 
let East’s daughters bear the market for themselves. 

“How much do you want?” King asked and she 
named the highest figure she could think of that con¬ 
veyed a meaning. (Crores look nice on paper but are 
over ambition’s head.) 

“A lakh!” she said, laughing at her own exorbitance. 

“Good! If your help is worth an anna you shall have 
a lakh of rupees!” King answered. 

She demanded, naturally, two lakhs after that, but 
Ali of Sikunderam declaimed on the subject of unfaith¬ 
fulness. A lakh she had said; a lakh she should have; 
his Khyber knife was there to prove it! He was as 
vehement as if they had the treasure in the room with no 
more to do than divide it, and she capitulated, more fear¬ 
ful of Ali’s Northern knife than of all other possible 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


67 


contingencies. She understood the glint in those eyes 
that were the color of the breeding weather. 

“A lakh,” she agreed; and then the horses came, and 
fiscal whispers had to be exchanged between the owner 
of the horses and the maid, who indubitably swindled 
everybody, though she had to part with a “reward” to 
Ali’s son, that being India—specifically Delhi and the 
seat of government, where extortion is the one art that 
survives. The horses were an illustration—crow’s meat, 
hungry, made to labor for a last rapacious overcharge. 

But nothing more was required of the horses than a 
walking pace. The two veiled women rode them in the 
midst of men who were in no haste, because to seem to 
hasten is to draw attention. It was better to swagger 
and invite attention, which has a way of producing the 
opposite effect. 

They headed as straight as winding ways permitted 
toward the northern outer fringe of Delhi, where the 
ruins of the ancient city lie buried amid centuries’ growth 
of jungle. Not a tiger has been seen in that jungle for 
more than thirty years, but few care to wander at night 
there, for everything else that is dangerous abides in that 
impenetrable maze, including fever and fugitives from 
justice. 

As they left the last of the modern streets the moon 
rose and they followed a track that wound like the course 
of a hunted jackal between ancient trees whose roots 
were in much more ancient masonry. The “servant of 
delight,” as she preferred to call herself since her mis¬ 
tress was what she was, led with King’s hand on her 
bridle-rein, recognizing the route by things she was 
afraid of—ruins shaped like a human skull that drew a 



68 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


scream from her—roots like pythons sprawling in the 
way—a hole in a broken wall that might be a robber's 
entrance—terrified, and yet employing terror consciously 
—enjoying it, as some folk like to sit in a rocking boat 
and scream. Life to amuse her had to raise the goose- 
flesh and offend the law, both of which are accomplish¬ 
ments of night in northern Delhi; so her faculties were 
working where another’s would have turned numb. 

They came at last to the world’s end, where a shadow 
blacker than a coal mine’s throat declared that life left 
off, and might have been believed except for moonlight 
that glistened beyond it along the ragged outline of a 
broken wall. There, under the bough of an enormous 
tree, whose tendrils looked like hanged men swinging in 
the wind, they turned into a space once paved so heavily 
that no trees grew and only bushes strangled themselves, 
stunted, between masonry. On the far side was a build¬ 
ing, still a building, though the upper part had fallen and 
the front looked like the broken face of a pyramid. 

Once it had been magnificent. The outside and the 
upper portions had collapsed, from earthquake probably, 
in such way as to preserve the middle part like the heart 
of an ant-heap. Partly concealed by bushes was an open¬ 
ing indubitably dug by men through the debris. That 
they entered, into a tunnel that was once a corridor open 
on one side to the air. And at the end of fifty dark 
yards, guided by matches struck two at a time, they 
turned to the left into a hall, whose marble sides had 
been quarried off long ago, but whose columns were still 
standing like rows of twisted Titans holding up the 
world’s foundation. 

There was a platform at one end, on which had stood 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


69 


a throne. But on it now were a canvas camp-bed, an old 
black hand-bag with a dirty 1 shirt in it, a couple of pairs 
of filthy blankets, and a lantern. Some one lighted the 
lantern, and about a million bats took wing; the air was 
alive with them, and the women hugged their heads, 
screaming. 

A few opened tin cans tossed into a corner showed 
how some one had contrived his meals; and one meal 
at any rate was recent, for there was unspoiled soup re¬ 
maining in a can beside the bed. But no sign of the 
Portuguese. Not a hint of where he might be. Only 
the certainty that he had been there that day! There, 
on the bed, turned inside out and empty, lay the chamois- 
leather bag that Cyprian had given back to him; but 
there was no more trace of the coins that had been in 
it than of da Gama. 

Narayan Singh was the first to speak: 

“Da Gama came for money, sahibs. I heard the 
boast made that the Nine never lie.” He seemed afraid 
his own word might be doubted since they hadn’t found 
da Gama. “Nevertheless—the money that we know he 
had is missing—gone—where?” 

He picked up the chamois-leather bag and shook it. 

“Up somebody’s sleeve!” chuckled Jeremy. “Look 
for the Don and I’ll bet you-” 

He spoke English, and the women’s exclamations 
stopped him. 

Ramsden went looking, not so talkative but bashfully 
aware, as big men sometimes are, of strength and an 
impulse to apply it. It was foolish to go looking in an 
empty hall, but men who don’t pride themselves on in¬ 
tellect occasionally are better served by intuition. He 



70 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


stooped over where a solitary section of a broken marble 
column lay on top of debris in a corner of the floor, and 
they heard his joints crack as he shoved the marble off 
the heap. 

“Here’s your Portuguese!” he said quietly. 

He might have found a golf-ball. But he, too, spoke 
English and the women exclaimed at it. The maid seized 
hold of Jeremy’s hand and began to examine his finger¬ 
-nails, which inform the practised eye infallibly; but 
Jeremy snatched his hand away and hurried to hold the 
lantern and look with the rest at what Ramsden had 
discovered. 

The yellow rays shone on the body of the Portuguese 
laid dead and hardly cold in a shallow trench hoed in the 
rubble. The marble column had closed it without crush¬ 
ing what was in there, and the corpse was smiling with 
the funny, human, easy-natured look that the man had 
worn in life for fragments of a second as he passed from 
sneer to sneer. He had died in mid-emotion, and the 
women vowed the gods had done it. They promised the 
gods largesse to save them from a like fate. 

There was no other explanation than theirs of how 
he died, nor of who else than the gods had killed him. 
They searched the body. There was no wound—bruise— 
no smell of acid poison—no snake-bite—nothing, but a 
corpse with a scarred chin, smiling! And no hat! 



nine's spies are 


F OR those who sacrifice themselves upon the altar of 
her needs—whether supposititious needs or other¬ 
wise—India holds recompense, as such quarters for in¬ 
stance as Father Cyprian’s, wedged between two gardens 
in a sleepy street, with the chimney of a long-disused pot¬ 
tery kiln casting a shadow like that of a temple-dome on 
the sidewalk in the afternoon. From India’s view-point 
Cyprian was all the more entitled to consideration in that 
he had never openly conducted any siege against her 
serried gods. He had saved the face of many a pre¬ 
tending pagan, holding in the privacy of his own con¬ 
science that the damned were more in need of comfort 
than an extra curse. So pagan gratitude had comforted 
his old bones, unpretending pagans not objecting. 

He was housed ascetically; but there is a deal more 
repose and contentment to be had in quiet cloisters than 

71 





72 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


in the palaces of viceroys, princes, bishops. Tongue in 
cheek, he had pretended to the arch-pretenders that he 
thought their magic formulas bewildering, doing it re¬ 
peatedly for fifty years until it was second nature, and 
men, whose minds were rummage shops of all the second¬ 
hand old-wives’ tales, not only used their influence to 
repay flattery but labored, too, to unearth facts for him 
beyond their understanding. India, surviving Anglo- 
Saxon worship of the playing fields and all unnecessary 
sweat, takes her amusement mentally. It was ''enter¬ 
tainment exquisite” to bring to Father Cyprian, the alien 
albeit courteous priest, new facts and revel in his intel¬ 
lectual amazement. (For in fifty years a man learns 
how to play parts, and, as Jeremy had noticed, Cyprian 
was "all things” to a host of various men.) 

He could discuss the metaphysical, remote, aloof 
though omnipresent All of Parabrahman just as easily 
as listen to the galloping confession of a Goanese in 
haste to unburden conscience and, as it were, dump bur¬ 
dens at the padre’s feet. Shapely, dignified old feet, 
well cased in patent-leather slippers, resting on a folded 
Afghan chudder to keep them off the tiled floor. 

Fernandez de Mendoza de Sousa Diomed Braganza 
watched them, as he knelt and searched the very lees of 
his imagination. He was very proud indeed to confess 
to Father Cyprian, a rare enough privilege, that of itself, 
if boasted of sufficiently, would raise him twenty notches 
in the estimation of the envious world he knew. All he 
could see below the screen were those old aristocratic- 
looking slippered feet, but they were reassuring, and he 
longed to touch them. 

"And so, father, that Arab, speaking English veree 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


73 


excellentlee, so that in fact I was awfulee taken by aston¬ 
ishment and made suspeecious—yes indeed—recom¬ 
mended me to come to you for confession!” 

“Why did you obey an Arab?” wondered Cyprian. 

“Oh, I think he, was the devil! How else should he 
speak English and laugh so light-heartedly? I saw his 
head against the night sky and I think he had horns—oh 
yes, certainlee!” 

Cyprian cautioned him. 

“If he was not thee devil, that one, then the other 
was—the great brute dressed as a Jat who seized me as 
if I were trash to be thrown away and hurled me against 
my customers! Father, I assure you I was like a cannon¬ 
ball ! He hurled me and I upset many men—oh yes, de- 
cidedlee! And though the whole hotel was subsequently 
burned, and from below I saw those veree selfsame in¬ 
dividuals burning in the flames, I have seen them since! 
If they are not the devil, they are salamanders-” 

“It is not for you to say who the devil is,” warned Cy¬ 
prian, aware of how the Goanese mind leaps from one 
conclusion to another. “How is it you escaped ?” 

“Oh, veree simplee. I have been most faithful in the 
matter of the candles for the altar of Our Lady of Goa, 
so when that—I am sure he was thee devil!—hurled me 
into the ranks of my customers I was assured in my con¬ 
science that that is enough, and I fled first, before there 
was a stampede, which I foresaw infalliblee. So when 
the stampede began I was on the stairs, and there I smelt 
the smoke and went to see as Moses went to see the 
burning bush, and seeing flame I ran to thee street and 
was saved. But my whole hotel and my fortune are up 
in flame—oh pity me!” 


74 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


So Father Cyprian pitied him with due restraint, and 
dismissed him after a priceless homily in which he point¬ 
ed out how profitably Diomed might have given all that 
property to the Church, instead of keeping it for the 
devil to make a bonfire of. Whereafter he told his ser¬ 
vant to open the slats of the jalousies and admit sufficient 
of the morning sun to make the place look cheerful. 

And a plain, cool, white, stone room with an ancient 
tiled floor and vaulted ceiling is a great deal easier to 
make cheerful than any sumptuously furnished boudoir 
in the world. The delights of mild asceticism are im¬ 
mensely keener than the pleasures of the epicure. The 
sun came in, obedient, and the light and shadow alter¬ 
nated in long triangles on floor and wall, leaving the 
rear of the room in shadowed mystery. 

There was no sign of the library—merely a breviary, 
and one or two books liberally marked with penciled 
slips on a table against the wall. In addition to the chair 
that Cyprian used there were six others, equally simple 
and equally almost impossibly perfect in design and work¬ 
manship—each chair as old as the Taj Mahal and no two 
chairs alike, yet all one unity because of excellence. 

A man may be ascetic without craving ugliness—an 
anchorite, in moderation, without shutting out his friends. 
A bronze bell from a vanished Buddhist temple an¬ 
nounced visitors. 

The servant—Manoel—another Goanese—soft-footed 
as a cat and armed with pots of fuchsias came in to an¬ 
nounce what he regarded as too many visitors at that 
hour of the morning. 

“They are not elegant. Not in the least—oh, no.” 

“Their names ?” asked Cyprian. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


75 


Manoel mispronounced them, was reproved, set the 
pots down, and departed to admit the visitors, changing 
his mood like a chameleon, only much more swiftly and 
with rather less success. For instance, it did not convince 
Chullunder Ghose, who entered first, as impresario. 

“Hitherto not having poisoned padre sahib, said sa¬ 
cred person being vigilant, you therefore impel malevo¬ 
lent influence of evil eye on these unholy sahibs who are 
honoring this babu with employment? Stand back, son 
of miscegenation! Cease from smiling!” 

Who would smile if addressed in those terms by an 
arrogantly fat babu? Not a bishop's butler. Still less 
Manoel. He scowled and—so tradition says—a man 
must smile before he can blast with that dreadful bane 
called Evil Eye in which the whole of the Orient and most 
of the newer world believes implicitly. Under the pro¬ 
tecting scowl Chullunder Ghose, with his back to Manoel 
for extra safety’s sake, marshaled the party in—Grim, 
Jeremy, King, Rams den, Ali of Sikunderam, Narayan 
Singh, and one of Ali’s sons who was beckoned in by 
Chullunder Ghose for “keyhole prophylaxis,” as the babu 
explained in an aside. The other sons remained squatting 
in the dust in the patterned shadow of a great tree oppo¬ 
site. Falstaff never had a raggeder, less royal following 
as far as mere appearance went—inside or outside the 
priest’s house. They all looked like men who trod the 
long leagues rather than the pavement. 

For though in the new, raw world, where twenty cen¬ 
turies have not sufficed to give the sons of men a true 
sense of proportion, he who would be listened to must 
masquerade and mountebank in new clothes of the new¬ 
est cut, India knows better—looks deeper—and is more 


76 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


wise. So in vain that net is laid in sight of her. Vice¬ 
roys, kings and all their pomp are side-shows, and the 
noise they make is a nuisance to be tolerated only for the 
sake of more or less peace. They are heard in the land 
and not listened to—seen, and appraised like shadows on 
the sands of time. The men who go in rags out-influ¬ 
ence them all. 

Manoel the Goanese, for instance, with all European 
error multiplied within him by miscegenation, scorned 
that ragged bodyguard beneath the tree for servants of 
men of no intellect or influence; and even so, a passing 
constable, with native vision warped by too much Euro¬ 
pean drill, but with all his other faculties and fondnesses 
alert, paused over the way to meditate how innocence 
might be made to pay tribute to worldly wisdom—paused, 
scratching his chin with the butt of a turned wooden 
truncheon and both eyes roving for a safe accomplice. 

‘‘That constabeel is a Hindu pig with hair on his liver, 
who designs an inconvenience to us—by Allah!” said one 
Hill brother to the next. 

And all six nodded, in a circle, resembling bears be¬ 
cause of sheepskin coats hung loosely on their shoulders. 

So within; the padre’s servant Manoel approached the 
seventh, who stood guard by the door of Cyprian’s sitting 
room, offering cakes to Cerberus. 

“Taste it,” he suggested. “Veree excellent—from 
oversea—the land of my ancestors—it came in a great 
flagon. Onlee veree distinguished people have been given 
any.” 

A hand like a plucked bear’s paw closed tight on the 
long glass, and with both eyes on the Goanese the Hill¬ 
man poured a pint of sweet, strong liquid down his throat, 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


77 


not pausing, not even coughing. The glass was back in 
the hand of the Goanese before the other had finished his 
gasp of astonishment. 

“Tee-hee! You like it, eh? Come, then, into the 
pantry, where is plentee more. You shall have your fill.” 

“No, for I don’t drink wine/’ said Rahman, wiping his 
lips on a sleeve. “Such dogs as thou know nothing of the 
Koran, but to drink wine is forbidden.” 

In vain the Goanese brought more, in a glass jug, 
tempting scent and vision. Rahman stood with his back 
to the keyhole, just sufficiently inflamed by one pint of 
Oporto to have split the Goanese’s stomach open at the 
first excuse, and not quite sure that he hadn’t already ex¬ 
cuse enough for it. So Manoel kept his distance, and the 
conference within proceeded safely. 

Cyprian began it, naturally, beaming on them with his 
loose, old lips and eyes that never betrayed secrets. 

“So you failed? I see you failed,” he said, glancing 
from face to face. “He gave you the slip, that 
Portuguese?” 

“They killed him,” Grim answered simply. 

“Ah! A longer spoon than ever! Too bad! But his 
hat—you found his hat of course?” 

“No. Missing!” answered Jeremy. “He had a five- 
pun’ note inside the band, with my signature.” 

Cyprian’s lips moved, but he said nothing audible. 

“Worse than that!” King added. “In his pocket 
should have been a paper on which he had jotted down 
terms he was prepared to make with us. We wouldn’t 
sign it, but the terms were down and an enemy would 
draw conclusions.” 

“Gone too?” asked Cyprian. 


78 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Yes. Taken/’ King answered. “Pocket was inside- 
out.” 

“Worse yet!” put in Ramsden. “All those ancient 
coins have disappeared. Here’s the bag—empty!” 

“All except this one!” 

Jeremy held up the one he had given pledge for. Cy¬ 
prian took it, turning it over and over in a hand as soft 
and smoothly wrinkled as a royal, grandmother’s. 

“Coins gone? Hat gone? Eh?” said Cyprian. 
“That hat—he kept his memoranda on a strip of parch¬ 
ment inside the sweat-band. If we had the hat—well—if 
we had the hat, I might have fitted his key into my lock, 
as it were. Well—so we are worse off than before!” 

“Much worse!” remarked Chullunder Ghose. “Flesh 
creeping, holy one! This babu, consumed by elementary 
anxiety, calls attention to arresting key of situation, 
which is: Enemy lurking in ambush, is now aware of op¬ 
ponents’ identity. Opponents being us! Alarming— 
very! Unseen, and selecting opportunity with exquisite 
precision, will sneak forth and smite us shrewdly, wasting 
no time! Verb, sap.! Your obedient servant, sahibs /” 

“He knows,” said Cyprian nodding. “He knows.” 

Ramsden half-unconsciously clenched two enormous 
fists, and Cyprian laughed. 

“If we could deal with them in that way their secret 
would have been the world’s five thousand years ago— 
wouldn’t it?” he said whimsically. “No, my friends. 
They may do violence to us; we must admit that possibil¬ 
ity. But it behooves us to use other means. We are lost 
if we try violence—babes in the wood, eh ? No whit safer 
then than Sennacherib’s Assyrians. We might as well 
walk barefoot into a cavern full of snakes! But the Lord 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


79 


slew the Assyrians. The Lord, too, fought against Sisera* 
Wisdom! We must be wise! You understand me?” 

He was trying to be all things at the same time to 
seven men of differing creeds, not one of which was his, 
and he was much too wise to venture on the freehold of 
religion, although that, and no other motive, was the im¬ 
pulse that had kept him laboring for fifty years. He 
knew that Jeremy, for one, would openly rebel at the first 
suggestion of creed or dogma, to say nothing of Narayan 
Singh and Ali of Sikunderam, who perhaps were not so 
important, although quite as unwilling to be compro¬ 
mised. 

“Nobody understands a damned thing!” answered 
Jeremy. “I know what we saw—a dead Don minus hat, 
and his pockets inside-out. We all know what the woman 
said. I’ve heard you. It all amounts to nothing, plus one 
gold coin-” 

“Perhaps I’d better hear about the woman,” Cyprian 
suggested. 

Jeremy told him, reproducing the whole scene and 
Gauri’s conversation, down to the last remark of Gauri 
when she saw da Gama lying dead. 

“'See? See? They fooled him, and the fool tricked 
me! I am a greater fool! I tell you, none but a fakir has 
the better of a fakir! Men say of me, and such as me, 
that I learn secrets. Phagh! Go and be fakirs, all of 
you!’ That’s what Gauri thought of it,” said Jeremy. 

“And she was right. She was right,” said Cyprian. 

Whereat Jeremy whistled. He smelt adventure com¬ 
ing down wind—unexpected— just the way he likes it 
best. Chullunder Ghose, who loves to feel his own flesh 
creep, made a noise like a stifled squeal and shivered. 



80 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Padre sahib, be advised by me!” he interrupted. 
“Being far from affluent babu perspiring much for un¬ 
derdone emolument, am nevertheless like package of Au- 
tolichus containing products of experience! That Mister 
Ross can be a fakir, yes. He is so clever, he can even imi¬ 
tate himself, same being most difficult of all cynicisms. 
But he is Australian. His deity is Nth power of Irrever¬ 
ence, same if brought in contact with high-church parties 
lacking sense of humor, being much more dangerous than 
dynamite with fuse and caps! I speak with feeling! 
Mister Ross will make conjuring tricks with seven-knot¬ 
ted bamboo rod of holiest mahatma, and we are all dead 
men—families at mercy of the rising generation—oh, my 
aunt!” 

Jeremy smiled, pleased; he likes applause. Head sud¬ 
denly on one side like a terrier’s who hears the word cat, 
he watched Cyprian’s face, alert. 

“There is truth in what Chullunder Ghose says— 
truth, and exaggeration,” Cyprain announced. “There is 
always danger in attacking deviltry. But exaggeration 
in such cases is”— he was going to say a sin, but checked 
himself—“a serious mistake because it terrifies.” 

Every man in the room except Chullunder Ghose 
smiled broadly at that. Cyprian smiled too, and none of 
them, except perhaps the babu, realized that he had 
chosen that means of eliminating any shade of terror 
from the argument. 

“You!” he said suddenly, pointing a finger at Jeremy. 
“You! Are you able to govern yourself? Can you un¬ 
derstand that if you play this part, one laugh at the wrong 
minute may mean death ?” 

“I hope I’ll die laughing—in my boots,” responded 
Jeremy. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


81 


“Your death—and others!” 

“Whose, for instance?” Jeremy came back at him. 
“I’ve seen men in India I’d kill for sixpence each!” 

“These—your friends,” said Cyprian. 

“That’s different. All right. I don’t laugh. I make 
up as the lousiest-looking holy man you ever saw. What 
after that?” demanded Jeremy. 

Cyprian looked hard at him. In one soft palm lay the 
gold coin, and he tapped it with a forefinger. 

“This is our only point of contact,” he began. “You 
must take it and do tricks. You must challenge the Nine 
in public! It is dangerous, and others must go with you 
to prevent abduction. Are you willing?” 

“Bet your life!” said Jeremy. “Who comes?” 

“Oh, my God!” remarked Chullunder Ghose, aware 
of the wheels of Destiny. 

“My young friend Jeremy, do you command suffi¬ 
cient self-control to let yourself be disciplined by our 
babu ?” asked Cyprian. 

The padre’s lips moved pursily, as if he were masti¬ 
cating something, and his face was toward Jeremy, who 
grinned, but his mind was already far away considering 
something else. Grim noticed it and grew aware that 
Cyprian had made his mind up without waiting for the 
answer. Quick work! But Grim is constitutionally 
cautious. 

“How about the babu?” he objected. “Can Chullun¬ 
der Ghose-” 

Cyprian banished the objection with a gesture. 

“You must be dumb, friend Jeremy—dumb!” he went 
on, forcing deep thought to the surface through a sieve 
that strained out all unnecessary words—particularly all 
unnecessary argument. “Challunder Ghose must talk.” 


82 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“My God! You see me shudder?” exclaimed the 
babu, not exaggerating. 

His fat shoulders heaved as if an earthquake underlay 
them, and a kind of grayness settled on his face. Never¬ 
theless, none doubted his intention. A century or two ago 
he would have braved the Holy Inquisition out of 
curiosity. 

“Whatever is said, Chullunder Ghose must say,” re¬ 
peated Cyprian. 

“Hear me say it now, then! Csesar, moriturus te sa- 
luto! Speech, committing me, silence absolves actual of¬ 
fender! My belly shakes, yet family must eat. Sahibs, 
increase my microscopical emolument!” 

Never was a man more serious. Chullunder Ghose, 
all clammy with anxiety, rolled his handkerchief into a 
ball and caught it with his naked toes repeatedly; but 
King moved over, and sat on a cushion on the floor be¬ 
side him. 

“You and I have tackled worse than this together,” 
he said. 

“Ah! Yes. You and I! But this Australian! He 
would tie a knot in the tail of Hanuman* himself, and 
trust to irreverence to get him out of it! He will cry, 
Cooee!—and pretend to a Brahman that such is collo¬ 
quial lingua franca of the gods!” 

“It is!” laughed Jeremy. “Australia’s God’s country. 
If I can’t talk the dialect, who can?” 

“Peace, peace!” said Cyprian, smiling. “Let us joke 
afterward. Colonel King, may I trust you to instruct 
friend Jeremy—drill him, that is? We can not afford 
mistakes.” 


*The monkey-god. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


83 


King nodded. In all India there was none else who 
had traveled, as King had done, from end to end of India 
in different disguises, penetrating the reputedly impene¬ 
trable. If King had but possessed a tithe of Jeremy’s gift 
of doing marvels with his hands, he would have been the 
man to send. But you don’t discover jealousy in men of 
King’s attainments. A trace of that would have made 
them fail a hundred times. Both he and Grim were safer 
men than Jeremy, and knew it; but they were also much 
less brilliant, and knew that too. As far as courage went 
there was nothing to choose, although they would all 
have picked on Ramsden if asked who was least amen - 
able to fear; and Ramsden, knowing too well what it cost 
him to control those thews of his, would have picked Na« 
ray an Singh. 

“You know there is a Hindu festival at Benares very 
soon ?” said Cyprian. “I am old, or I would go with you. 
I know those ceremonies. I could guard against mistakes. 
Now, understand: the danger is abduction ! There will be 
a million men and women in Benares—more! You—dis¬ 
guised—unknown—you could vanish as easily as seven 
pebbles from the beach! So you must all go, each to 
watch the others. Be two parties. Jeremy, Chullunder 
Ghose, Ramsden—one. The other, all the rest of you, 
pretending to be strangers to the first. But all Hindus, 
mind—able to claim acquaintance if you must.” 

“We shall be in next world very presently!” remarked 
Chullunder Ghose. “What is object of this impropriety?” 

Cyprian made a noise with his tongue. He did not 
like the word impropriety. He answered looking any¬ 
where but at the babu. 

“The Nine Unknown must keep themselves constantly 


84 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


informed. In order to know they must observe. To ob¬ 
serve they must go, or send their representatives. To be 
in touch with the mind of the mass—which their purpose 
must be certainly—they will take care to attend the fes¬ 
tivals, in person or by proxy. If one of their number 
should go to Benares—as is possible—extra precautions 
will be taken of course to preserve incognito. But in any 
case there will be at least one of their principal lieutenants 
there to bring dependable reports. You understand that? 
Now-” 

The old man was warming up.. He moved in his chair 
restlessly and kept wiping his lips on a lawn handkerchief. 
His gestures, losing the indeterminate, painstakingly tact¬ 
ful quality, were becoming imperative. 

“In cryptographic books in my possession it is laid 
down as inviolable rule that one of the Nine always vis¬ 
its Benares at this season of the year. They receive 
money—gold and silver—that accumulation never ceases. 
And the East changes slowly; without a doubt a great 
deal of the money even in these days of banks goes to Be¬ 
nares, Hardwar, Prayag and such places by porter at the 
times of pilgrimage. Some one is there to receive it. 
You understand ?” 

Rams den opened his mouth at last. Economy—con¬ 
structive, pioneer economy was his long suit. 

“It would take a freight-train to haul the money. The 
amount that disappears in one year--” 

“Could be carried among a million pilgrims without 
attracting notice/’ Cyprian retorted. “Do you realize 
your opportunity ? Contact is our problem! If, by 
challenging attention, you can once make contact with 
the Nine Unknown, you may leave the rest to me! We 




THE NINE UNKNOWN 


85 


will presently find the books! Then you may have the 
money—any one may have it! The books—those nine 
books—they are the true goal.” 

“If the cash really goes to Benares, it would take a 
train to haul it out!” Ramsden insisted. “In that case 
we need only watch the railway-” 

“Who said the money is hauled out again?” Cyprian * 
retorted testily. “For all you know there is a hole under 
a temple in Benares-” 

He checked himself, aware that for the first time he 
had awakened incredulity. Even Chullunder Ghose al¬ 
lowed an expression of mockery to light his face up sud¬ 
denly. Ali of Sikunderam exploded: 

“Allah! If the Hindus had that much money in a 
hole beneath a temple, the Hills would 1 have smelt it 
years ago! Moreover would the English not have 
learned of it? They smell gold as a thirsty horse smells 
water in the plains. And if the English were afraid to 
take it on a pretext, would the Hills refrain? Would 
that bait not have brought the lashkars * yelling down the 
Khyber? And would guns have held them back in smell 
of all that loot ? Allah! Show me but one sack of gold, 
and I will show you how hillmen plunder—I and my 
sons!” 

But Ali of Sikunderam was wax in Cyprian’s hands. 
Swift, subtle flattery turned his indignation into boasting, 
out of which net there was no retreat. 

“You and your sons—invaluable! Splendid! You 
should have a part, but oh, the pity of it! You are 
Moslems.” 


♦Hillman armies* 




86 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


"Aye! The pity of it!” answered Ali. "When the 
sirkar needed men to go to Lhassa who should not 
upset the heathen bellies of Thibetians with a true relig¬ 
ion, was I chosen with three sons to make that journey 
because we could not act Hindu ? Doubtless! Bring me 
a thousand Hindus, and if one of them can pick me out 
of a crowd as not being a Hindu of the Chattrya caste, 
I will go back to my Hills and hold my peace!” 

"But not in Benares. You would not dare in Ben¬ 
ares,” suggested Cyprian. 

"By Allah, in Benares they shall think me a double¬ 
holy Brahman born in paradise! I will have the sadhus 
kissing feet within the hour!” 

"So. Excellent!” said Cyprian. "That is, if you 
dare.” 

"I would like to see the thing I dare not do—I and 
my sons!” answered Ali. 

"You speak of them as yours. I would rather hear 
them pledge themselves,” said Cyprian. 

"By Allah, they will swear to what I bid them swear 
to !” answered Ali. "If I say a hill is flat, they prove it! 
If I say a Hindu wears his belly inside out, they demon¬ 
strate that, too, on the nearest unbeliever! If I bid them 
be Hindus, they will even shave themselves and look that 
part. Wait and see! I will bring them in.” 

He strode to the door to tell Rahman, who was stand¬ 
ing guard, to go and summon them. Rahman went off 
to obey and the door was closed again, but opened a 
minute later by Chullunder Ghose, who leaned his whole 
weight on the knob and used it suddenly. Manoel, the 
butler, entered on his knees and fell face-downward, 
saying nothing, amid silence. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


87 


“Eavesdropping!” exclaimed Cyprian at last. 

The Goanese did not answer—too afraid, or too wise. 
He lay with his face between his hands in an attitude of 
abject supplication. 

“Put him outside for the present,” ordered Cyprian; 
and Ramsden took Manoel by the waistband, tossing him 
into the pantry as you throw a stick into the fire. 

“I tell you,” said Cyprian, “we war with powers! 
The Nine’s spies are everywhere. More than once I 
have suspected Manoel, but-” 

The door burst open again. It was like a thunder¬ 
clap in that quiet sanctuary. Rahman stood with a hand 
laid flat on either door-post, leaning in, his eyes screwed 
up and glinting like the heart of flint. 

“They are gone!” he said. 

“Allah! My sons gone?” 

Ali leaped up and drew his knife, though none, not 
even he, knew why. 

“All gone!” answered Rahman. “There was no 
fight, for there is no blood. I think they went of their 
own will.” 

“By Allah, then they saw the prospect of a fight!” 
swore Ali. 

He stood on feudal right that instant—claimed Rams- 
den’s help, they two having plighted troth over a restored 
knife, and there is no pledge more inviolable. 

“Brother, I need thy strength,” he said with dignity. 

And Ramsden did not hesitate. Believing that his 
wits are slow and that strength is all he has, he volunteers 
for all the odds and ends and heavy work, the others con¬ 
ceding the point to avoid discussion, but setting far too 
high a value on him to risk him unnecessarily. (You 


88 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


may discuss a man’s thews to his face, but not his spirit.) 
So they trooped out behind Jeff, Jeremy leading, leaving 
only Grim alone in the room with Cyprian. 

It had occurred to Grim, as intuitions do come to a 
thoughtful man in a flash sometimes, that if the guard 
left in the street had gone so suddenly there was a chance 
that some one hoped to gain advantage by their absence. 

If so, then Cyprian was the obvious objective. If not, 
even so it would do no harm for one of the party to stay 
and protect the old man. 

He offered no excuse, no explanation; simply stayed. 


CHAPTER VI 


"they fled before me !" 

H AVING eased 1 his mind concerning the require¬ 
ments of another world, Fernandez de Mendoza 
de Sousa Diomed Braganza began to speculate on the 
improbabilities of this one—improbability of credit in the 
first place. None had been so foolish as to underwrite 
the fire risk on his hotel. It was a dead loss. It was 
equally improbable that any of his erstwhile guests would 
,pay their bills, since the books were burned; they would 
blame him for the loss of their effects, and probably 
bring suit against him. 

He knew equally well that the police would be in 
search of him that minute to arrest him on a charge of 
criminal responsibility. He knew his wisest course 
would be to go to the police and surrender himself be¬ 
cause Father Cyprian, the next-door-to-infallible, had 
said so, and, deciding to do that, he hurriedly reviewed 
89 



90 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


another long list of improbabilities-^-acquaintances, who 
had been friends before the fire, who might be asked, 
but probably would not consent to furnish bail. 

So he turned to the left when the padre’s front door 
shut behind him, minded to call on one acquaintance on 
his way to the police. That circumstance prevented him 
from seeing the arrival of Grim, Ramsden, Jeremy, King 
and all the others, who approached Cyprian’s from the 
opposite direction. They were within before Diomed 
turned and retraced his steps. So all he saw were Ali’s 
sons in the dust under the tree—them and the constable 
opposite, who was rubbing at his jaw-bone with the end 
of a yellow truncheon to assist the processes of thought. 

What brought him back was nothing more concrete 
than one of those changes of mind, like the action of a 
ship in irons in a light wind; in India they call them dis¬ 
embodied spirits that govern men in their extremity. He 
had vacillated—thought of another acquaintance, who 
might be less difficult to pin to than the first. Noticing 
the constable he chose the other sidewalk, naturally. And 
with both eyes on the law’s hired man from under the 
sheltering brim of his soft felt hat he just as naturally 
stepped by accident on the skirts of the sheepskin coat of 
one of Ali’s sons. 

The men of Sikunderam don’t fancy being stepped on. 
It is even likely they would choose a Goanese last if 
obliged to name the individual to be permitted some such 
liberty. Nevertheless, the act was obviously unintention¬ 
al and nothing more than a mild curse would have fol¬ 
lowed if Diomed had not, tripping and trying to recover, 
kicked the hilt of a yard-long northern knife. And that 
is sacrilege. A Hillman would not kick his own knife. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


91 


So the curse that leaped from the lips of one of All’s 
sons was like the hissing and explosion when you plunge 
a hot iron into oil. Diomed sprang back as if a snake 
had bitten him, and even the constable across street 
awoke out of speculative meditation, for it looked as if 
the gods had come to life to solve his problem for him. 
It is good to be alert and on hand when the gods arrange 
the play. 

And as he sprang back Diomed knew the face of his 
antagonist for one that had cursed him previously—on 
the roof before the fight and the fire began. He recog¬ 
nized him as a man who had been held back by the others 
lest he use steel prematurely. And thought in the mind 
of a Goanese confronted by predicament is as swift 
and spiteful as an asp’s. It recoils automatically on the 
person who aroused it. 

Now he could surrender to advantage! Now he need 
not go empty-handed to the mills of the police that grind 
so small, and so impartially, so be that they get their 
grist! This came of confessing his sins to Father Cy¬ 
prian! Now bail was unimportant. There were dozens 
who would hurry to his aid if it were known he had 
scapegoats, locked up in the next cell, ready to be sacri¬ 
ficed. 

All of that passed through his mind with the speed 
of starlight, in between the opening and' closing of the 
Hillman’s angry teeth. He beckoned the constable, who 
came, standing warily a good yard from the sidewalk, 
not enamored of the chances yet, for they were six to 
one and the gods not finished shuffling. It is the privil¬ 
ege of the gods to make things easy for a man. 

“Arrest all these!” commanded Diomed, in English 


92 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


for the sake of extra emphasis. “They are the villains 
who set fire to my hotel! I warn you they are danger¬ 
ous! Arrest them instantleel” 

The constable could recognize the danger without 
help. He was perfectly aware of six long knives—not 
yet free of their scabbards, but poised between earth and 
air like Mohammed’s coffin. Moreover, the fire was 
news to him. 

“Brothers, I said that constabeel designed an incon¬ 
venience to us! Stand back-to-back!” 

The “brothers” stood so, around the tree-trunk, in¬ 
offensive as a third rail. 

“In case you reefuse to arrest them I will reeport 
you! This is a highlee important case—veree!” said 
Diomed, pulling out a pencil to write down the con¬ 
stable’s number. “I saw these men set fire to my hotel!” 
he added. 

But the constable, preferring life to an eulogium in 
the Gazette, demurred. 

“Where are your witnesses?” he countered, grinning. 

Diomed flew into a rage immediately. He knew the 
law, or said he did, and threatened to invoke the whole 
of it, including dark and lawless influence, on the con¬ 
stable’s unrighteous head. He named names. He cited 
instances. He mentioned the policeman’s ancestry. 
Raising his voice indignantly he summoned all the neigh¬ 
borhood to witness cowardice—corruption—a policeman 
in receipt of bribes refusing to arrest six murderers! 

The neighborhood had no will to associate itself with 
outside scandal, having plenty of its own, and the few 
who had been in the street departed—all but one. A 
man in an orange-yellow smock, with a big, red caste- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


93 


mark in the middle of his forehead, a twisted orange- 
yellow turban, and no other visible garment, property or 
distinction, stood where another great tree marked a nar¬ 
row cross-street and beckoned, holding his forefinger 
close up to his eye as if in some way that lent long range 
to the invitation. 

And the constable by now was more enraged than 
Diomed, with this addition, that his rage was based on 
absolute injustice; for the things that Diomed had said 
of his female relatives were not to be borne by a man of- 
spirit and some authority. They had' reached the stage 
of snapping fingers, and Diomed’s two arms were waving 
like semaphores as he leaned forward, showing simian 
teeth, to spit denunciation in the constable’s indignant 
face. 

“One beckons,” said a voice beside the tree. 

“And you are corrupt—corrupt—everybodee knows 
it—son of an evil mother—you accept bribes from all and 
sundree and-” 

“He wears a yellow garment, brothers, such as the 
sadhus * wear, but yellower. He is only one. We could 
beat him if he lied to us. He beckons, and he signals 
silence-” 

“All together—run, then!” 

They were gone like leopards flushed from cover, 
down-street, each with a hand on the hilt of a Khyber 
knife, as good to stand in way of as the torrents of 
Sikunderam in spate. They swooped on the man in yel¬ 
low as if he were foe, not friend, meaning to seize him 
and whirl him along between them; but he knew the 


^Wandering holy men. 




94 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


nature of the squall he had evoked, and he stepped down 
the side-street; he had vanished when they reached the 
corner, and they wasted half a minute casting this and 
that way like a pack of hounds before one of them saw 
him beckoning again, and the six went full-pelt at a 
right-angle to their first course, hardly thinking now, but 
all of one mind and three purposes: to outrun the con¬ 
stable, to overtake the man in yellow, to keep together. 

“There!” exclaimed Diomed, pausing in a torrent of 
abuse. “Now all thee world can see how you let crim¬ 
inals escape!” 

And the abuse had got its work in. There is poison 
in the stuff, that breeds miscalculation. It is like a 
smoke-screen thrown off by a human skunk to mortify 
whoever has weak sensibilities. The constable was angry 
and aware of duty to be done—some one to be arrested. 
Six criminals, accused of arson, had escaped under cover 
of the seventh’s volleys of abuse, and so the seventh must 
be guiltier than all! He raised his truncheon—actually 
to hammer out a signal on the side-walk—but, in Dio- 
med’s excited imagination, to attack. And Diomed 1 
struck him—twice, in the face, with the flat of his hand, 
hysterically—struck an officer of the law in execution 
of his duty! 

So the truncheon went to work in earnest, and poor 
Diomed was beaten over collar-bone and forearm until he 
wouldn’t have dared move them for the agony. Then 
he was handcuffed ignominiously, swearing, beseeching, 
praying, and marched away, followed by inevitable small 
boys as free from the vials of compassion as the monkeys 
are that some say are their ancestors. They said things 
that excited Diomed to wilder imprecations yet. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


95 


And among the boys there was a dwarf—a man in 
orange-yellow, taller by half a head than the tallest 
youngster, and as stocky as two of them, but gifted with 
the same free movement, so that he passed in the crowd 
unnoticed. He edged his way closer and closer to the 
constable, who glanced about him nervously, aware that 
in these "higher education days” the riots and the rescu¬ 
ing are done by school boys while their elders do the 
propaganding in the rear. He hurried, driving his pris¬ 
oner in front of him with thumps from the truncheon 
on the backbone just above the trousers-band. It was 
several minutes before the dwarf could edge close enough 
to speak low and yet be heard. 

“You are fortunate!” he said at last. “Surely you 
have promotion in your grasp! You have taken the in¬ 
famous Braganza, who is charged with burning his hotel 
and murdering a hundred guests!” 

“I knew it! Come and give your evidence!” the 
constable retorted, for the East lies glibly or not at all. 
He tried to seize the dwarf as a material witness, but 
missed him in the crowd, and had to hurry on for fear of 
losing Diomed, whom he charged presently with arson 
and with employing six Afridis to preserve him from 
arrest. “I fought them all, and they fled before me,” he 
asserted. 

Meanwhile, there was a strange assortment of indi¬ 
viduals in more or less pursuit of Ali’s sons, with All in 
the lead, of course, since the “sons” were his valuable 
property, and with Chullunder Ghose as naturally in the 
rear, as utterly indifferent to the sons’ fate as the moon 
is to the netting of fish at ebb tide, but on the job and 
anxious notwithtstanding. 


96 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“For if an earthquake had emptied Bedlam, releasing 
affinities of swine of Gadarenes, and if government of¬ 
ficials plus editors of daily press were in charge of whole 
proceedings, that would be diamond-edged sanity com¬ 
pared to this! This is worse than acting on advice of 
experts! This is—oh, my aunt!” 

He was not far wide of the mark; for as he waddled, 
wiping sweat from .his fat face, he could see the whole 
long-drawn line extending down-street, each in his own 
way calling curious attention. Jeremy, for instance, re¬ 
veling in being taken for an Arab, looking ready to go 
mad and do a whirling dervish dance at the first ex¬ 
cuse, with the long, loose sleeves of his black coat spread 
like wings, in full flight after Ali. 

Then Ramsden angrily, annoyed with Jeremy for 
making such a public exhibition of himself yet unable to 
overtake him and remonstrate, striding along like Sam¬ 
son who slew the Philistines. 

King next, side by side with Narayan Singh, neither 
of them even fractionally off-key, and therefore about as 
noticeable as two true notes in a flat and sharp piano 
scale. 

“Man that is born of a woman is like ginger-pop!” 
remarked Chullunder Ghose, pausing to consider. “Cut 
string—cork flies—and he spills himself! Step one on 
the path of wisdom is to be wise— ergo —by the waters of 
this Babylon I sit me down and weep—thus—-tree, I 
greet you, weeping sweat, not tears! Great tree, what 
a world of men and women you have mocked! Mock me 
a while, your shade is comforting and your shafts of wit 
pass overhead ! Now let us see— King sahib is remark¬ 
able for sanity. Ergo, he will notice me in rear. Observ- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


97 


ing emulation of Fabius Cunctator by this babu, King 
sahib will suppress inborn proclivities of Anglo-Saxon 
and pattern his thought accordingly. 

“He will follow down that street to next corner, where 
he will park himself broodily, sending Narayan Singh 
forward to repeat process. Thus, whenever I proceed as 
far as corner and become conspicuous, King sahib will 
observe me and will signal to Narayan Singh. We shall 
thus be in touch. And the others will behave as the 
sparks that fly upward, which can’t be helped. That is 
my guess. Being heirs of all the ages, I shall sit in shade 
and see the world go by. Suspicious? Very!” 

Chullunder Ghose was right. King did turn the 
corner in pursuit, and at the next one did sit down on 
the veranda of a boarding-house for Sikhs, where Naray¬ 
an Singh, who kept up the pursuit along another street, 
could find him and whence he himself might see Chullun¬ 
der Ghose if the babu should see fit to come to the corner 
and signal. The others, following Ali of Sikunderam, 
who shouted inquiries a hundred yards ahead, stuck to 
the pursuit like people in a motion-picture comedy. 

“Item one, a fool is very foolish,” said Chullunder 
Ghose to himself, leaning his fat back against the tree 
and flapping flies with an enormous handkerchief. 
“Therefore congenital deficiencies of Ali’s sons comply 
with formula. Verb. sap. If they had been attacked 
said idiots would have stood at bay by door of padre’s 
house, in accordance with law that nature abhors a 
vacuum—doubtless. Empty heads apply at spigot of 
authority to be filled with instructions. They would 
have focussed attention on padre’s house inevitably. 
Quod erat—nicht zmhrf Ergo, they were not attacked. 


98 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“What then? A woman? Much too early in the 
morning. And again—no fight! If six such idiots 
pursued a woman, or women, through the streets of 
Delhi, there would be bad blood spilt as certainly as there 
are speeches when a politician pursues office. There¬ 
fore not a woman. This time not the sex that bringeth 
forth in sorrow and regretteth same. 

“Then a man! The unproductive sex! At least as 
sorrowful but less opaque! Motives more easily discern¬ 
ible. The six translucent jewels of Sikunderam have 
been decoyed—and by a man, or men—therefore for 
profit! Whose? Why? I lift a stone. Why do I lift a 
stone? Because I need the space it sits on—or I wish to 
throw it—or—if he—they—needed the space on which 
the sons of Ali sat—or the street in which they sat—I 
see—I get you—‘Steve, I get you!’ as Jimgrim says— 
behold, I see through mystery ! Let us hope actions are 
not so loud as words. Thou tree—thou solid, dumb, 
obtruding tree, farewell!” 

There came a tikka-gharri* drawn by one horse on 
the way home from assisting at the Rishist only knew 
what all-night revelry. Chullunder Ghose signaled the 
driver, who declined a fare sleepily, without success. The 
babu waddled to mid-street and had climbed in before the 
protesting jehu could whallop his nag to a trot. 

“Give her gas!” said Chullunder Ghose, translating 
slang learned from Grim into opprobrious vernacular. 

So the weary cabman whacked the wearier horse and, 
better to call attention to himself, the babu stood up 
screaming that he had a gall-stone and would die unless 


♦Hired cab. 
tSpirits, 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


99 


in hospital within the minute. He was seen, heard, 
contemplated. 

But he only drove two blocks, around a corner, and 
then paid the astonished cabman the exact fare. If he 
had overpaid him he would only have multiplied suspic¬ 
ion. Then he walked back three blocks, parallel to the 
street in which was Cyprian’s house, and turning the 
corner suddenly was just in time to see three men in 
orange-yellow smocks approach Cyprian’s door and ring 
the bell. He stood there long enough to watch them 
enter and see the door shut again behind them. 

“Kali!” he exclaimed then. “Let us hope Jimgrim 
is appreciative! Dogs of the Wife of Siva the Destroyer! 
Oh, my aunt!” 

He had been in time to see Ali of Sikunderam charge 
up the steps and plunge into the building—for the men 
he hurled his questions at had misdirected Ali and he had 
covered an unnecessary mile before learning that his 
precious sons were foul of the law. 

He ran like an articulated jellyfish until he reached 
a corner whence he could see King perched on the board¬ 
ing-house veranda. There, ignoring all discretion, he 
pulled his rose-pink turban off and threw the thirty yards 
of silk in air, whirling it until King raised a hand in 
answer. 

Promptly King leaned out over the veranda-rail at 
the corner of two streets and made a gesture that Nar- 
ayan Singh saw from a quarter of a mile away. And 
the Sikh, not optimistic, having seen too much, but un¬ 
derstanding that the gang was wanted back at Cyprian’s, 
went at the double to retrieve as many of the gang as 
possible from a building in front of which two square 
lamps advertised—POLICE. 


100 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Narayan Singh had seen Rahman follow Ali, and 
then Jeremy, then Ramsden. None had come back down 
the steps, so he was in no doubt what to do, although he 
did not know yet how absurdly simple the strategy of 
the man in orange-yellow had been, nor how simpler and 
more finished would be that of Jeremy. 

Like will-o’-the wisp in orange livery he had simply 
led those six North-country swashbucklers a dance along 
street after street—up the stairs of the police station— 
and there had accused the lot of them of theft! There 
was nothing whatever for the police to do but hold them. 

When Ali got there pandemonium was loose, for the 
six sons’ weapons had been taken and they were resist¬ 
ing further search as desperately as hell’s imps would 
object to baptism—teeth—talons—imprecation—horizon¬ 
tal mostly, with a couple of policemen laboring at each 
limb and each lot expanding and contracting suddenly in 
spasms. One policeman—he who had recently arrested 
Diomed the Goanese—went from lot to lot using a trun¬ 
cheon unapplauded, aiming at the heads of Afghans but 
oftener hitting his friends. He said nothing about recog¬ 
nizing them, having already claimed to have defeated 
them in mortal combat. The obvious solution was to 
stun them lest they recognize himself, but it was ex¬ 
tremely difficult to hit their heads. 

And into that confusion Ali leaped like a firecracker, 
knife and all, to be brought to a stand by the officer’s 
revolver. The officer was in his place, in charge, behind 
the desk. There might have been murder done, for Ali 
was in no mood for compliance, with his darlings being 
whacked and twisted under his eyes. The fact that the 
police were bleeding, and his sons not more than warm¬ 
ing up for a morning’s work, added to his zeal, and in- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


101 


stinct warned him that the man in yellow was the “fath¬ 
er” of the rumpus. Therefore, Ali was for springing at 
the man in yellow’s throat when Jeremy strode in smil¬ 
ing like an illustration from the Book of Ruth, with 
Rahman yelping like a wolf a step behind him. 

“Salaam aleikoum! Peace! Let there be peace!” 
boomed Jeremy in a voice with a ventriloquial note that 
fills a room. He sounded, as he looked, like a man from 
the Old Testament. Ali detected magic in the wind and 
yelled a! word that his sons obeyed on the instant. Even 
so, the police were human and eager for revenge, but 
Ramsden walked in. 

Baring his forearms, he offered to kill with his hands 
the first three constables who struck a prisoner. So 
there was peace as Jeremy requested, and the man in 
yellow took advantage of it, going close to two of Ali’s 
sons, who were held fast, with a policeman on each wrist. 
He said he wanted to identify them. Jeremy observed, 
and Ramsden observed Jeremy. The officer observed 
all three, but Jeremy’s hand is swifter than any eye. 

“They are the men who stole from me!” said the man 
in yellow. “I had a gold coin similar to this one in each 
hand. Rushing at me, they seized my wrists and took 
the money, which you will find on their persons. Search 
them!” He drew from a pocket in his smock and dis¬ 
played one ancient coin that Jeremy and Ramsden identi¬ 
fied as having belonged to the Portuguese da Gama. 

“Search them!” ordered the officer, tapping his re¬ 
volver on the desk. 

“Wait! First let me also identify!” said Jeremy; 
and he, too, went close to the same two of Ali’s sons. 

He removed and palmed a coin that the man in yel¬ 
low had secreted in the nearest man’s sash. 


102 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Not satisfied with that, he walked up to the police 
officer and whispered to him. Then, from him, to the 
man in orange-yellow who was beginning to look less 
pleased—a mite impatient. 

“Have I ever seen you anywhere?” asked Jeremy. 
“Were you ever in Jerusalem? Jaffa? Alexandria?” 
“No!” 

“He lies!” said Jeremy. “I know him well! This 
was* a trick by the Hindu to steal a gold watch from 
your honor,” he went on, smiling at the officer as if 
butter hardly ever melted in his mouth. “However, as 
the Prophet saith, on whom be peace, ‘Let not words 
and emptiness of speech suffice!’ Search all three men!” 

Now Ali’s sons stood still, submitting, for they had 
felt what Jeremy's nimble fingers did. And Jeremy, 
with his back to Ramsden, passed to him two gold coins 
for safety’s sake, stepping forward again instantly. The 
jaw of the man in orange-yellow dropped. 

“He—that Arab—” he began. 

But the searchers had stripped Ali’s sons in vain, and 
it was his turn. The first hand thrust into his pocket 
drew out the officer’s gold watch and chain. 

“Magic!” exclaimed the officer. “He never one® 
came near me!” 

“Lock him up then! Such as he are dangerous I” 
said Jeremy not turning a hair, and the officer accepted 
the advice, insisting, too, however, on holding three of 
Ali’s sons as witnesses. 

It was then, as the door of one cell slammed on all 
four and a fifth already in there, that Narayan Singh 
strode in, appraised the situation, and strode out again, 
leaving as many to follow him as could or would. 





CHAPTER VII 


“SHAKESPEAREAN HOMEOPATHIC REMEDY!” 

RIM and Cyprian sat face to face in silence with a 



shaft of sunlight streaming through the space be¬ 


tween them. Infinitely tiny specks of dust—for Cyprian 
was a martinet and Manoel used cloth and broom in¬ 
cessantly—danced tarantella-fashion, more or less as 
gnats do, in the golden fairway. 

‘‘You observe them?” said Cyprian presently. “Each 
one of those moving specks is itself made of billions of 
infinitely tiny specks all in motion. That is the way the 
universe is made. All atoms—all in motion—in an all- 
pervading essence known as ether. You know that? It 
is in the books—'the oldest of all books as well as the 
newest The ancients knew about it seven thousand 
years ago, if we accept their heretical chronology. I 
have their books to prove it. These Nine Unknown are 
the inheritors of scientific secrets that used to form the 


103 






104 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


basis of the Ancient Mysteries. Yes, that’s so. That’s 
so. There isn’t any doubt of it. Not religious secrets, 
understand me—no, no, they are enemies of all religion! 
They use scientific truths to stir superstition' by pretend¬ 
ing their phenomena are miracles! Devils’ work! They 
know—the rascals! They have knowledge! Compared 
to them our modern scientists are just as Julius Csesar 
would have been if somebody confronted him with 
Paine’s fireworks or an eighteen-inch gun or the radio. 
Clever fellow, Caesar. Bright as a button. He would 
have tried to explain it away; tried—but there would 
be the phenomena—effect—result of cause; you have to 
know the cause to understand effect. No use repudiating 
it. Our moderns fail exactly as Julius Caesar would have 
done. And the Nine Unknown laugh. Devils! 

“Nothing suits them better than to have the scientists, 
the newspapers, the governments, the secret service, the 
police, all vow that no such knowledge as theirs exists— 
no such organization. Above all they chuckle because 
the church denies them. Missionaries are their best 
friends. To declare they are non-existent without prov¬ 
ing it leaves the rascals free to do as they please, without 
lessening the superstition of the crowd. You understand?” 

Grim did not. He has the pragmatist-adventurer’s 
view of life, dissatisfied with all veils hung between 
himself and noumenon, and studying each phenomenon 
from the angle of “what’s the use of it ?” 

“Why deny what you can’t prove? Why not dis¬ 
cover their science and employ it properly ?” 

Cyprian interrupted him with a frown and a flash of 
temper that betrayed volcanic will unweakened by his 
age and only curbed by discipline. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


105 


“Tckut! Wiser minds than yours decided about that 
long ago. Beware of the sin of presumption! These 
people have been branded as magicians—tricksters! 
Their pretensions, magic—tricks! Humbugs!—evil- 
workers !—liars!—cheats! They have imposed on super¬ 
stition. Take the consequences. Banned by the Church. 
Outlawed. Burn their books! Who shall say then that 
they have, or ever had, a scrap of scientific knowledge? 
That is my task—fifty—two-and-fifty years of effort. 
Burn the books! The nine books! Burn them! They 
have defied the Church— sed prevalabit!” 

“I don’t get you,” answered Grim. “Knowledge 
ought to be known. Those books-” 

“Are mine! To do as I see fit! Did you not agree?” 
demanded Cyprian. 

Grim had agreed, but that did not admit the whole 
contention. Grim, because he keeps an open mind, has 
been accused by missionaries of belonging to nearly every 
heathen cult in turn, but his name stands written on no 
muster-roll. He is under no vows of obedience. He 
countered: 

“King and I have talked this over—lots. King has 
been on the trail of it for twenty years you know. Are 
you sure the Nine aren’t honorable men, who know more 
than is safe to teach the public?” 

Cyprian smiled at that like a martyr prepared to die 
for his convictions. 

“Only, some one killed the Portuguese,” Grim went 
on. “Why? If they know so much, why kill a drunken 
crook you can afford to pity?” 

“I have told you. They are devils,” answered Cy¬ 
prian. 



106 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“And while the hotel burned there was a voice urging 
the crowd to attack us,” Grim continued. “The same 
voice shouted, Tire!’—deliberately creating panic. Some 
one had searched the Don’s room—carried his books 
away. Same man—same men more likely—returned to 
burn their tracks. That hardly seems like men who, as 
you put it, have inherited the knowledge of the Ancient 
Mysteries.” 

The expression of Cyprian’s face changed. He drew 
on his mask of patience that at eighty a man has learned 
to use consummately or not at all. It was quite clear 
that if he gave discussion rein these colts of other creeds 
would gallop away with him, Grim particularly. Disci¬ 
pline was out of the question. Whip he had none. Ar¬ 
gument was useless. It would do no good to tell a man 
like Grim to let speculation alone. 

“Would you go and find my servant Manoel?” he 
asked; for helplessness is like a weapon, in a wise man’s 
hand. 

Grim left the room. 

Manoel sat cross-legged on a blanket in the corner of 
the pantry, hardly having moved from the spot where 
Ramsden dumped him down. The sin of speculation— 
if it is a sin—could not be laid to him, for he was dumb 
—determined—obstinate—like a dog that has hidden to 
escape a thrashing and will neither run away nor come 
to heel. He did not even shake his head when Grim 
ordered him into the padre’s presence; so Grim went 
back and reported the state of affairs, having more than 
one purpose in mind. 

And it seemed good to Cyprian just then to supply 
Grim with the wherewithal to take his mind off the sub- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


107 


ject they had been discussing. Helplessness was put to 
work again. 

“I am old. It tires me to undertake these—do you 
think Mr. Ramsden frightened him too much—I wonder 
—would you mind, eh ? See what you can do with him— 
persuade him to come in here—yes ? Such a rascal as he 
has been!—no, by no means always honest—but a serv¬ 
ant—he has been a comfort. Will you talk to him?” 

That was tantamount to carte blanche. Grim, incap¬ 
able of nosing into the domestic secrets of his host, could, 
would and did crowd every limit to the edge when given 
leave. He squatted down, cross-legged too, in front of 
Manoel and waited until the shifty brown eyes had to 
come to a rest at last and meet his gray ones. (The 
passport says they are gray, which makes it legal, but 
no two agree as to their real color. Possibly they change, 
although his zeal is fixed.) 

“You’re in luck. You’ve one chance!” Grim said 
speaking in Punjabi. 

Manoel did not answer; but the word luck probed 
the very heart of inborn passion. 

“Da Gama and Braganza had no luck at all,” said 
Grim, and Manoel lowered his eyes, not straight down¬ 
ward but along the arc of an ellipse because of certain 
racial peculiarities. 

“Da Gama died. Braganza’s house was burned. Do 
you feel brave?” Grim asked him. 

Manoel looked up—suddenly. 

“Who are you?” he asked. 

His lips parted loosely. The corners of his mouth 
dropped, and he shifted his eyes to left and right, show¬ 
ing more than was wholesome of the bloodshot whites. 


108 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Dread, unexpected and acute, was unmistakable; it 
acted like a solvent on the sullenness of fear. Grim saw 
his chance—almost too long to be called chance; he had 
nothing to go on but conjecture. 

“Who do you think I am?” he retorted. “Look into 
my eyes! Who am I?” 

Manoel hesitated, with the expression of self-con¬ 
scious innocence facing a firing squad. Having double- 
crossed friend and enemy alike there was nothing to fall 
back on but his conscience, obviously! Grim bored in, 
wishing he knew something definite to base assault on. 

“Didn’t you expect me?” he demanded. 

“Yes, but-” 

The million-to-one shot landed! Grim’s face hardly 
changed expression, but his eyes had laughter in them 
that the Goanese was far too scared to recognize. 

“—but I didn’t look for a Punjabi. He who told me 
wore a yellow smock—a sadhw. I have not had time.” 

“Time!” Grim retorted, forcing the note of indigna¬ 
tion. 

“I have not had time, and I have not been paid,” said 
Manoel, shifting his eyes again, and then himself, so that 
Grim, who was all alert suspicion, jumped to a conclusion. 

“Do you know they killed da Gama?” he asked, set¬ 
ting his face like brass, and Manoel shuddered. “Do you 
mean to tell me you have not been paid ?” he went on, fix¬ 
ing his eyes on the Goanese and speaking slowly. 

And whether or not Manoel had pocketed his price, 
imagination warned him he was helpless, at the mercy of 
some one who would harvest whether he had sown or not. 
Admission that he had been paid was no proof of it at all, 
he being what he was. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


109 


“But now he knows I was at the keyhole. He will dis¬ 
miss me. And first he will investigate. So he will find 
out, and I do not dare! I will give the money baek!” 

That, too, was no proof that he had been paid. But it 
was proof that he had taken more than one step on the 
path of treason. Grim turned and swiped at a fly. Again 
the unhappy Manoel shifted—not so much his eyes this 
time as his whole person, although his eyes did move. It 
was because his eyes moved that he did not see Grim look¬ 
ing in the little kitchen mirror. 

“Give it here!” said Grim. 

“The money? I—I-” 

“No. Give it here—or-” 

“Let me go then! I must run! I do not dare stay and 
face his anger!” 

But Grim knew now, and he is one of those who use 
knowledge, patiently or promptly as the case may be. He 
leaned forward. Manoel screamed, as a chicken does 
when a housewife has her by the legs. Grim seized him 
by the collar-band, and all ten chocolate fingers closed on 
the iron wrist. Grim jerked him forward, threw him on 
his face and sat on him, proceeding then to raise the 
blanket. 

“Thought so! Yow! You little scorpion!” 

He seized his victim’s wrist and twisted it until a knife 
dropped—kicked the knife across the floor—glanced at 
the back of his thigh to observe that it was hardly bleed¬ 
ing—laid the folded blanket on the Goanese’s head and 
sat on that—then lifted what had been beneath the blan¬ 
ket, carefully. 

It needed care. It was an old book bound in vellum, 
crackled with age. Within, in sepia, beautifully written 




110 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


in the Maharatta tongue, with diagrams, on paper yel¬ 
lowed with age and thumbing, was what purported to be 
a literal translation of a very ancient roll. 

The first page, on which the translator’s name had 
very likely been, was missing. On the second was a pen¬ 
tagram within the dodeahedron—the geometrical figure 
on which alchemists assert the universe was built. Be¬ 
neath that was a diagram of the Hindu cosmogony side 
by side with the Chaldsean. On the third page, in Ma- 
harathi at the top, as if continuing a paragraph from page 
one, was the following: 

Whereafter, being certain that the roll would not be 
missed until (here a name was illegible) should come 
again, I hid in the cave with the hag who made provision 
for my needs, and by the light of the unextinguishable 
lamp I labored at the construing, with haste, that the 
whole might be accomplished, yet with diligence, lest er¬ 
rors enter in. 

This finished volume witnesseth. 

Which being done, this shall be hidden in a place 
known only to the hag. Whereafter, I will endeavor to 
return the roll lest (the undecipherable name again) 
should fall under suspicion and suffer for infidelity. 
That risk is great, for it is hard to come at the place where 
the rolls are kept. 

But death is no more than the gates of life. 

The hag has her instructions. So this fruit of my 
long husbandry shall fall into the right hands. He who 
guided hitherto being All-wise to accomplishment. 

Then here begins: 

On the next page, at the top, in bold Maharathi char¬ 
acters, was the first law of the Cabalists, and of all alche¬ 
mists and true magicians since the world began. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


111 


AS ABOVE, SO BELOW. 

Grim read no further, for the stuff absorbed him to 
the point where near-unconsciousness of every other cir¬ 
cumstance prevailed. His whole being yearned to the 
lure of that musty volume and its secrets. He craved it 
as some unfortunates crave opium. The merely physical 
appeal of drugs, prodigious though it is, monopolizes no 
more than the intellectual attraction of the unknown does 
a man of Grim’s temperament. If he had read another 
page he would have read a dozen, and a dozen would have 
only whetted appetite. He closed the book with a slap 
that brought the pungent dust out, and removed himself 
from Manoel’s head. 

“You insect! If you had the original of this I’d trade 
you my right hand for it!” 

“Let me go!” sputtered Manoel. “Oh, sir; I am 
afraid to face him! Take the book and let us both go!” 

But Grim took book and Manoel, each by the back, 
and shoved the Goanese along in front of him into the 
padre’s presence. 

“He seems to have been keeping this for you,” he said 
and laid the volume on Cyprian’s knees. 

“Had he read it?” demanded Cyprian. 

“Oh, no! Oh, no, sir! Oh, father, oh, no, no! It is 
black magic and forbidden. I would never read it!” 

“What odds ? He wouldn’t understand a word,” said 
Grim, and Cyprian nodded. 

“Let him go,” said Cyprian. “Drive him from the 
house!” 

But Grim had spoken English, and the fear that 
gnawed Manoel’s bowels multiplied. It dawned on him 


112 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


that he had been tricked. Grim, then, was Father Cy¬ 
prian’s friend, and not- 

“No, no, no!” he shouted. “No! You must be mer¬ 
ciful! This is my sanctuaree! I may not be driven 
forth! I tell you I did it to save you from murder be¬ 
cause you are old! You are ungrateful! You commit a 
great sin if you drive me forth!” 

He wanted to throw himself down in the attitude of 
supplication, but Grim had him by the neck. 

“He expected somebody,” said Grim. “Shall we see 
this through now?” 

“Face the adversary!” Cyprian answered. 

But age gave way to youth. He waited for Grim to 
make the next decision. And Grim held his arm out, 
helping—almost lifting the old man from his chair. 

“You’d better be seen at the door,” he* said. “We’ll 
let them see Manoel go empty-handed.” 

He turned on the Goanese and shook him. 

“Listen, asp! Get your belongings. Oh! Only a 
blanket, eh? Preparations all made—everything out of 
the house but that?” 

He followed him to the pantry, watched him through 
the door, and seized him by the neck again as he emerged. 

“Now, you’ve another chance. Don’t speak in the 
street! Show you haven’t got the book—look scared— 
walk! You understand me ? If you disobey I’ll-” 

“Oh, oh! Onlee let me not go! I will-” 

Grim stood back. It was Cyprian, trembling with age 
rather than emotion, who stood in the doorwav and sped 
the errant Goanese with his left hand raised palm-out¬ 
ward and a look of pursed-up horror. 

I tell you, father, I did it to preevent murder!” 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


113 


sobbed Manoel with great tears running down into his 
whiskers. “Give me benediction then, I-” 

Cyprian did not deny him that. It possibly accom¬ 
plished more than Grim’s threat. Manoel departed down- 
street with his head hung, and the blanket draped over one 
arm, avoiding all encounters; and a man in orange-yellow 
by the great tree opposite—where Ali’s sons had sat— 
drew such deductions as he saw fit. Grim standing in 
shadow within saw the man make a signal. 

“Good!” he said. “Shut the door now,” and Cyprian 
obeyed as if learning lessons. It was hard, maybe, at 
eighty to learn to dispense with even a dishonest servant. 

They returned to the sitting-room, whence the clois¬ 
tered peace had gone, although the sunlight still streamed 
through the spaced jalousies. 

“Pity the first page is missing,” said Grim by way of 
making conversation. 

“It isn’t!” snapped Cyprian, and looked to see. 

Confronted by the fact, his last strength seemed to 
vanish and he sat down, knocking the book to the floor. 
Grim rescued it. 

“On the first page, at the top, was the finest cosmog¬ 
ony ever drafted,” said Cyprian, “and underneath it an 
explanation of the terms used.” 

He spoke as if hope were dead forever. Grim 
changed the subject, or tried to— 

“Let’s hope our crowd don’t return too soon!” 

“I should have searched that blanket,” Cyprian 
grumbled. “He had the first page wrapped in it. I know 
he had!” 

Grim tried again. “Tell me what the ‘unextinguish- 
able lamp’ means on page two,” he demanded. 


114 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Mind your own business!” Cyprian snapped back, 
struggling to be calm. “If I will burn books, shall you 
rifle their secrets first? Phoenix from the ashes, eh? 
No, no! Hear no evil—see no evil—know no evil—that 
is my advice to you, my son! What I burn need not 
trouble you!” 

“Are your books in this house?” Grim asked, sud¬ 
denly alarmed at a random notion. 

But Cyprian chose to be amused at that, shaking his 
head sidewise with the palsied humor of old age. 

“Do you think I am in my dotage?” 

Grim had no time to reply. There came a long peal 
on the bronze bell, that clanged on its coiled spring as if 
the temples of all Thibet were in alarm. Grim went to 
the front door, opened suddenly, and stood back. 

Three men entered, all in yellow smocks. They came 
in swiftly, almost on the run—stopped suddenly—and 
hesitated. They were surprised to see Grim. 

“I am the padre sahib’s new servant,” he said in the 
dialect, smiling. 

Then he turned the key and threw it out through the 
little round peep-hole that exists somewhere or other in 
most Indian front-doors. 

“Father Cyprian is in there,” he said, with a jerk of 
his head in the direction of the sitting-room. 

. They eyed Grim curiously, saying nothing. Bigger, 
stronger than Grim as far as appearance went, they wore 
the impudent expression of men who have been taught 
from infancy that they are better than the crowd, of other 
clay—bold, yet with a sort of sly air underlying impu¬ 
dence, and an abominably well-fed look, although they 
wore the simple smock of the ascetic. Finally .they all 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


115 


three smiled at Grim, and one of them motioned him to 
lead the way into the sitting-room. The man next to him 
who motioned had a long silk handkerchief in one hand, 
and on his forehead the crimson signet of the goddess 
Kali. Grim stepped back instead of forward—ducked— 
stepped back again—and stood in the pantry entrance 
with blood chilled and the gooseflesh rising. 

“My hour is not yetJ” he assured them. 

Except for Grim's activity there had hardly been a 
motion visible, and yet—the handkerchief was in the oth¬ 
er hand. The executioner had missed. And if there had 
been a score of witnesses they would likely all have 
sworn there had been no attempt made, for the pride of 
the Thug* is in his swiftness. None sees the strangling 
when it happens, it is so quick. 

All three men smiled with the coppery, cast expres¬ 
sion of determination that can bide its time. Grim mo¬ 
tioned them again toward the sitting-room, and they 
went in one by one, the man with the handkerchief first, 
and the last man turning on the threshold to assure him¬ 
self that Grim was not bent on reprisal. But no effort 
was made to exclude him. The door was left open until 
he walked in after them and closed it—having his own 
reasons. 

Cyprian was very near collapse. The apparition of 
the three in orange-yellow came like an almost mechanical 
denouement, to which Manoel’s misconduct had been 
overture—warning perhaps. His old hands clutched and 
clutched again the carved ends of the chair-arms. But he 

*Thuggee, as far as its practise by wandering bands is con¬ 
cerned, was stamped out by the Government long ago; but its 
methods, and the skill of its practitioners, survive. 



116 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


said nothing. He was fighting for self-mastery. His 
lips were moving, probably in prayer; and repeatedly his 
eyes sought Grim’s, although Grim refused him any an¬ 
swering signal. Grim knew he held the winning hand, 
and he who knows that is a fool if he fails to play it 
carefully. 

His cue was to make believe he had no weapon—to 
(postpone violence—to unmask purposes—to ascertain 
facts—before admitting 1 the possession of a forty-five. 
Even when the orange-yellow exquisite tried thuggery he 
had not so much as made a gesture to reach his weapon, 
and the three were fairly satisfied that he was unarmed. 
They sat down in a row on the long strip of yak-hair rug 
that covered half the floor, facing the shuttered window, 
at an angle of forty-five to Cyprian. 

Grim went and sat in the corner facing Cyprian, 
whence he could watch them at an angle athwart the flow¬ 
ing lines of light. They were nearer to the door than he 
was, but had no forty-fives, which made a difference. 
They produced what they did have—two old-fashioned 
muzzle-loading pistols between three of them—cocked, 
and fitted with percussion caps. Grim looked afraid, and 
Cyprian was afraid. 

“You want what ?” Cyprian demanded, speaking Eng¬ 
lish for no other reason than that those words trembled 
out first. 

“Books!” replied the middle of the three men, using 
the same language with a readiness and absence of for¬ 
eign accent, that astonished because of his bronzeness and 
the orange-yellow smock. There was no reason why he 
should not know English, except that he looked like one 
of those who pride themselves on their refusal to learn it. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


117 


“What books?” asked Cyprian feebly. 

But only his voice failed. There was no suggestion in 
his eye that he dreamed of yielding. Rather, he was re¬ 
covering self-command as the effect of shock receded. 

“All the books you have, including that one,” the same 
man answered, pointing at the volume Grim had saved 
from Manoel’s clutches. 

Cyprian took his own time about answering that, mov¬ 
ing his lips and jaws as if first He had to masticate the 
words and glancing down at Grim repeatedly to see 
whether Grim had any signals for him. 

But Grim sat still, the way a chela sits by the feet of 
his guru , unpresuming, waiting for the wisdom to come 
dropping word by word from the privileged lips of age. 
When the time should come for Grim to give a signal he 
was minded to make it abrupt and unmistakable. 

“Who are you men ?” demanded Cyprian at last; and 
the three in yellow looked amused. Either they disbe¬ 
lieved that he did not know, or they thought it amusing 
he should dare to ask; it was not clear which. 

“We are they who demand the books,” answered he 
with the handkerchief, and his companions nodded. 

“And if the books are not here?” Cyprian asked. 

“We will take that one, and you with it! Later you 
will show us where the others are.” 

Grim heard the noise he was waiting for, but did not 
move, for the sound was vague as if, on the sidewalk, 
thought was producing words, not action yet. He hoped 
the bell would not ring—hoped the key dropped through 
the hole would be interpreted—hoped Cyprian would not 
have apoplexy at his next remark. For it was time and 
he was ready. 


118 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Holy one,” he said in the dialect, playing the part of 
the chela still, “would it not be wiser if I tell them where 
a few books are ?” 

He allowed his eyes to wander furtively in the direc¬ 
tion of the far wall, where the room was in shadow. 

“And I win!” he exclaimed in English suddenly. 

They had turned their heads to follow the direction of 
his glance. They looked back along the barrel of a forty- 
five. And of all things in the world that are difficult, the 
hardest is to tell which of three of you sitting side-by-side 
will be first in the path of a bullet. 

“They are hollow-nosed bullets,” Grim assured them. 
“Put your hands up, please!” 

They held their hands up, palms to the front, suggest¬ 
ing Siva’s image. 

“We are not afraid,” said the man in the middle. “We 
are watched for. Others come.” 

“Yes, others come,” said Grim, aware of noises pene¬ 
trating through the thick door and thicker walls. 

“Bet you they’re in here! What’ll you bet ?” demand¬ 
ed Jeremy’s voice as the door flew open and the whole 
crowd poured in, Jeremy leading—all the crowd, that is, 
who had been in the room before, and two besides. 

Ali of Sikunderam came last, volcanically angry, mut¬ 
tering Islamic blasphemy into his ruffled beard that either 
he had tugged at or some other man had pulled. 

Narayan Singh went straight for the two pistols and 
kicked them away from their owners. One went off. A 
lead ball as large as a pigeon’s egg was flattened on the 
stone wall close to Cyprian and the smell of cheap black 
powder filled the room. Using that as an excuse the 
three in orange-yellow put the ends of their turbans across 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 119 

their mouths and nostrils, moistening them thoroughly 
with spittle. 

“Being very holy men no doubt, oh yes!” remarked 
Chtillunder Ghose, picking up both pistols as his own per¬ 
quisite. “Spirits of the cess-pool! Who invoked them? 
That is the worst-smelling powder! Are infernal regions 
advertised by Christian missionary actual? My aunt! 
Shall I open window, holy one ?” 

But Cyprian was losing consciousness. King went at 
a bound for the door and was in time to stop the three 
strange visitors with three blows. (India, who knew al¬ 
most all human knowledge long before the West was 
born, has yet to learn to use her fists.) He bade Ali and 
his sons hold them, and returned to discover what the 
source of the reeking smoke was. He suspected a gren¬ 
ade with some new sort of fuse. But there was only the 
assassin’s long silk handkerchief, dropped on the carpet 
as if by accident. He kicked it and nothing happened, 
though the smoke did not cease. 

Meanwhile, Grim was holding Cyprian’s head while 
Ramsden lifted him and Jeremy forced a window. Be¬ 
tween them they got the old man’s head into the fresh air. 
He showed signs of recovery. But the three coughed so 
violently that they could hardly hold him up, and the 
open window seemed to make no difference inside the 
room; there was no telling where the smoke came from. 

Nor was it actually smoke; rather a thin mist, with 
a hint of pearliness and green in it. There was a faint 
suggestion of sweetness and a little ether. It was a com¬ 
pound undoubtedly, and there was lots of it, but neither 
King nor yet Chullunder Ghose exploring on hands and 
knees could find its source nor any container that might 
have held it. 


120 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Outside the room, where the gas or whatever it was 
spread swiftly hut not so densely into the hall, Ali and his 
sons were taking law into their own hands. There was a 
cellar door—a trap with big strap-hinges—and the weight 
of the door, with rust and friction added, was as much as 
two men striving mightily could move. That appealed, 
and the sons of Ali raised it. Down below was a stone¬ 
walled cellar twelve by twelve or so, empty of everything 
except some builders’ trash. 

Ali with his drawn knife drove the prisoners one at a 
time until they jumped down in there. 

“If they break their legs, may Allah mortify the 
stumps!” he requested piously. 

Meanwhile, tearing about the room, upsetting things 
and vowing there were devils loose, Narayan Singh lost 
equilibrium, fell over Chullunder Ghose, and collapsed 
with his head near the silken handkerchief. King seized 
him to drag him from the room, and noticed a burn where 
his face had touched the silk. Chullunder Ghose picked 
up the handkerchief and dropped it with a yell. 

Ramsden, Jeremy and Grim picked Cyprian up be¬ 
tween them and ran for the door with him, meaning to 
make for the street. They met King dragging the Sikh, 
and for a second there was a tight jam, into which Chul¬ 
lunder Ghose came headlong. 

“Oh go! All go! Only go!” he shouted. “Now I 
know it! Manicheean magic!* It is death! It is un¬ 
quenchable !” 

Cyprian heard him. 

*The Manichees were Persians, whose teaching was a form of 
dualism. But they also celebrated mysteries and were said to 
practise magic and theurgy. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


121 


“Poison—from the ancient books 1” he gasped. “Come 
away!” 

They had reeled through the door in front of the ba- 
bu’s impact. 

“Where are those prisoners?” King shouted. 

Ali and his sons began to labor at the trap-door, but 
it had jammed in place and was difficult to start again. 
Chullunder Ghose, purple with effort and choking, sized 
the situation up and charged back into the sitting-room. 

He came back like a “soccer” forward, shouting and 
kicking the handkerchief along in front of him. 

“Out of my way! Out of house! Quick!” 

They fled before him—all but Ali and his sons. The 
men of Sikunderam considered dignity and flight before 
a babu, at his order, incompatible. They went on work¬ 
ing at the trap, and raised it about six inches. 

“So! Good! Now down again!” 

The babu kicked the handkerchief through the open¬ 
ing and, as Sikunderam showed no symptoms of obedi¬ 
ence, jumped on the trap, forcing it out of their fingers 
and down into its bed with a report like an explosion. 
There he squatted, looking like a big bronze temple image. 

“Now is good!” he said. “Keep open house until gas 
shall evanesce! Practitioners of Manicheean deviltry will 
now be hoist like engineers with own petard! Shake¬ 
spearean homeopathic remedy! Verb very sap! Oh yes! 
Tell sahibs, no more danger now!” 

And saying that, Chullunder Ghose himself keeled 
over. 



CHAPTER VIII 
“he is very dead !” 

I N ONE hot brick cell, closed by an iron door with a 
peep-hole in it, there were three of the sons of Sik- 
underam, one Hindu in orange-yellow with a crimson 
caste-mark on his forehead, who had refused his name, 
and Fernandez de Mendoza de Sousa Diomed Braganza, 
whose name and occupation were as well known as his 
temper was notorious and his predicament acute. 

None of the others seemed to worry much. The 
“sons” were aware that father Ali and his patrons knew 
their whereabouts, and it is Law in the North, whence 
they came, that the feudal claims are first. There would 
either be a rescue, or a use of influence, or possibly raw 
bribery this side of midnight. They were sure of that, 
whether rightly or wrongly. 

And he in orange-yellow, having had the trick turned 
back on him by Jeremy, was none the less apparently at 
122 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


123 


ease. He wore the would-like-to-be-dangerous smile of 
the hanger-on of priests not subtle, rather threatening— 
the smile of a man who holds himself superior to others 
as rule number one of policy. There is nothing in the 
world more sure than that the priests and politicians al¬ 
ways abandon their clients when convenient; nor any¬ 
thing more fixed than the assurance of the due-to-be- 
abandoned until the miserable fact confronts them. 

Diomed, on the other hand, was neither full of faith 
nor hope; and he never did pin much to charity. Hav¬ 
ing counted on forgiveness of his sins, he found that there 
was fortune still to reckon with; and he did not believe 
that fortune ever favored Goanese much. He supposed 
he must sin some more. 

“We are five in one predicament. Shall we compare 
notes?” he suggested. 

Being first man in that cell he felt almost in loco par 
rentis, a guise that any innkeeper assumes without much 
difficulty. That son of Ali whom he had recognized in 
the street was not one of those detained, so he was un¬ 
aware of facing men whose enmity he had already, and 
could not lose without suitable compensation, of which 
they, and they only, would be judges. 

The sons of Ali held their peace. Their knives had 
been taken from them. Talk is no equivalent for steel. 
Lacking the one, in the North’s opinion, it is unheroic and 
incontinent to substitute the other. 

“Waitl” says Sikunderam. “The hour of God’s ap¬ 
pointing cometh! Wait, saying nothing!” 

But the man in orange-yellow, regarding Allah as a 
myth, served an even more destroying goddess, whose 
devotees are encouraged to seek opportunity, not wait. 


124 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


He spoke, and his voice was strangely reminiscent, so that 
Diomed stared open-mouthed at him. 

“Some one set fire to a hotel in the night,” he said. 

“Mine! My hotel!” 

“So there are three,” said he in orange-yellow: “he 
who knows the secret, they who wish the secret kept, and 
he or they who wish to know who did it.” 

“Do you know who did it?” demanded Diomed, 
thrusting his little black-bearded face forward so as to 
read the other’s expression better. 

But there was no expression, except that cast-copper 
smile betokening superiority. He in yellow was return¬ 
ing the compliment by watching Diomed, so neither of 
them saw the rapt attention displayed on the faces of 
AH’s sons. But the men of the North, who are fools, as 
all India knows, were born with their ears to the whimp¬ 
ering wind. They are easy to deceive, but as to voices 
and the memory of voices never. Six eyes from Sikun- 
deram, more used to lean, long distances, met in the cell 
gloom and three heads nodded almost imperceptibly. 

“They who wish the secret not known may bid first,” 
said the orange-yellow man. “Nothing for nothing and 
from nothing. The key that opens is the key that fits. 
My necessities are a lock that holds me. Has any one 
the key?” He stared into the eyes of Sikunderam, im¬ 
pudently, challenging. In the dark of the cell they 
looked like three young startled animals. 

“Whoever would take on himself the theft of that po¬ 
liceman’s watch would have my friendship,” said he in 
orange-yellow. 

“You know!” exclaimed Diomed. “You know who 
burned my hotel!” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


125 


“I know!” he confessed, with another of his bronze 
smiles, glancing surreptitiously, at Ali’s sons. 

His need was to make them understand him. Diomed 
might shout to heaven that he had stolen the watch, and 
the world would only vote him mad; but if one of those 
Hillmen should confess, and the other two should con¬ 
firm it, what court could help believe ? 

“I will say who set fire to the hotel unless-” 

“It was they! It was they! They did it!” Diomed 
interrupted. “Now I know them! They are the devils 
who fought on the roof! They are the sons of evil moth¬ 
ers who-” 

He was silenced by a slap across the mouth, back- 
handed, that made his lips bleed and cut the knuckles of 
the smiter. But not one word was said to him. Nor did 
he who had struck the blow speak at all, for economy is 
the essence of good teamwork. 

It was the second of three self-styled brothers who 
pointed a lean fore-finger; and the third who gave tongue 
to what all three had in mind. 

“Aye! Thou knowest! And we know! We know 
the voice of him who cried ‘Bande Materam!’ That same 
voice—thy voice—cried ‘Fire !’ before the fire was set! 

“Ye were there then?” the Hindu answered mock¬ 
ingly ; and Diomed, with a half-breed’s instinct for com¬ 
ing violence, drew his knees up to his chin on the bench. 
He screwed himself into the corner to be able to jump 
either way. 

“Aye, we were there, seven of us and the father of 
the seven, a Sikh too, and a Jat and some sahibs, who 
will swear to that voice of thine, thou raven croaking in a 
cave! We are not men who can be imposed on! We—” 



126 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


The man in orange-yellow interrupted. Like all who 
pride themselves on their intelligence he underrated that 
of his would-be victims. He threatened them. Whereas, 
two things are sure: if you threaten the men of Sikunder- 
am you must be able to make good, and prove it; and if 
you plead to them, you must prove you are empty-handed 
—a true supplicant for charity. Between those two poles 
all earth lies belly-upward to be bargained over. They 
are poles like light-houses that no man possessed of open 
eyes could miss. But pride is like box-blinkers. 

“You Moslems don’t like to be hanged. I can call 
witnesses. Better make terms with me!” 

The Indian courts of justice war with a system of 
perjury that is older and more popular than law. The 
consequent precautions and delays, and the system, that 
if ten men swear to a thing and twenty swear against it, 
the twenty win, may lend itself to obvious abuses that, 
according to Sikunderam, are avoided easiest with cold 
steel. 

The sons of Ali had no steel. Tradition would have 
counseled patience and dissimulation. But the heat in 
the cell was growing insufferable for men born where 
the clean air whistles off everlasting snow-peaks, and 
stuffiness—being kin to strangulation—breeds hysteria, 
which in turn brings all innate proclivities to the surface 
and upsets any calculation based on intellect. He in 
orange-yellow was an intellectual. He knew the rules. 

*1 he sons of Ali were no psychologists. 

Let him die before he does us injury! Be quick, 
my brothers!” 

That was a call for action, understood and never 
argued over. He in orange-yellow gave a shout blended 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


127 


of agony and unbelief as fingers like hairy spider-legs 
closed on his throat. Other parts of his anatomy grew 
palsied with pain, in a grip that he had no more chance 
of breaking than a sheep has of breaking the butcher’s 
hold. Noise ceased. 

It was at that stage of proceedings that the cell-guard, 
whose ear had been to the peep-hole, hurried to summon 
his officer. He ached with ill-will, because his sinews 
had been twisted when the sons of Ali objected to arrest. 
He wanted to see them dragged out one by one and beat¬ 
en. But exactly at the same moment there entered from 
the street three men in orange-yellow, with the caste- 
mark of Kali on their foreheads, who approached the 
desk and made signs to the bewildered officer. The be¬ 
wilderment was all too obvious. 

He was as displeased as a magistrate might be to 
whom an arrested violator of the law made masonic sig¬ 
nals; nevertheless, not nearly so certain what to do, 
since there was no appeal in this case to his honor and 
the dictates of conscience. He was bluffed before they 
said a word to him. 

“This is a day of reckoning,” announced the leader 
of the three. “One of ours is in your keeping. He is 
part of the price. We demand him.” 

The Moslem officer hardly hesitated. Saying noth¬ 
ing, but livid under the impress of that fatalistic fear 
which is the only force blackmail has, he started toward 
the cells and disappeared through a door into the corri¬ 
dor, followed by the cell-guard. The door slammed, but 
opened again a minute later. The officer stood there 
beckoning. The three followed him in, and the door 
slammed shut a second time. 


128 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Look!” 

The officer flung the cell-door open and the cell- 
guard brought his carbine to the charge, showing his 
teeth for extra argument. The three in yellow, self-con¬ 
trolled, peered in like visitors being shown the sights, 
their bronze faces showing no more emotion than the 
image on copper coins; but the police-officer was trem¬ 
bling with anxiety. 

“I ask you to believe—” he stammered in Punjabi. 

One of the three interrupted him, touching his sleeve, 
not wasting any words. 

The three were interested—neither more nor less. 
There was possibly as much trace of amusement on their 
lips as you may see on the granite monument of one of 
the old Pharaohs—semi-humorous acceptance of the iron 
rule of destiny, observed without surprise. The officer 
tried speech again. 

“Beware, most honorables! They are dangerous!” 

The same quiet hand on his sleeve requested silence. 
The three had seen all there was to see, but continued 
looking; for the processes of thought are said to be ac¬ 
complished best with all eyes on the object. 

In front of the door, as if laid there for inspection, 
was the body of the individual in orange-yellow who had 
threatened the sons of Sikunderam. Most of his throat 
had been torn out by human fingers, and the back of his 
head lay flat against the shoulder-blades in proof of a 
broken neck. Both arms were twisted so that the hands 
were around again to where they should be, backs to the 
floor. The feet were toe to toe, after describing three 
quarters of an outward circle, and a leg was obviously 
broken. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


129 


“He is very dead!” remarked the one voice of Sikun- 
deram, speaking for three minds. 

The sons of Ali sat back on the bench, backs to the 
wall, in an attitude that gave them leverage in case one 
indivisible impulse should decide them to attack. They 
could launch themselves from the wall like tigers out of 
ambush. One hint of reprisals and no cell-door on earth 
would be able to slam quick enough to keep them in. 

But unaccountably there grew an atmosphere of calm, 
as if Allah, Lord of Kismet, had imposed an armistice. 
The electric tension eased, as it were, and muscles with 
it. Some one in yellow smiled, and Sikunderam an¬ 
swered in kind through a gap in a black beard. All three 
men in yellow strode into the cell, stepping over their 
co-religionist, and one of them turned to beckon in the 
officer, who, at their suggestion, sent the cell-guard to 
the office out of sight and hearing. 

“Is it lawful to imprison these five, of three lan¬ 
guages, three races, three religions, in one cell?” was 
the first question. There was only one answer possible: 

“No, but-” 

The same quiet finger on the same sleeve banished 
the explanation. Without a word said it was made clear 
that the legal, or rather the illegal fact was all-sufficient. 

“Most honorables, that is how your co-religionist in 
yellow met his death!” piped Diomed, emerging out of a 
catalepsy. “Most worthy followers of Kali, these three 
savages attacked him without excuse and butchered him 
brutally. I offer to give evidence!” 

Miscegenated intuition—perverted, that is—told 
Diomed that his chance lay in taking sides against the 
man in uniform. The three he addressed were obviously 


130 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


visitors, not prisoners, and the officer’s fear of them was 
plain enough. 

“This policeman threw us into one cell in the face of 
protests. He is responsible.” 

He pointed at the officer, who scowled but the three 
ignored both of them. Instead, the one who acted spokes¬ 
man launched a question at the sons of Ali that was half¬ 
proposal, half-riddle, and breath-taking regarded either 
way. 

“You understand, that if you escape from this cell il¬ 
legally, you are guilty of that in addition to the charge of 
murdering this man ?” 

“And other charges—other charges, senores! They 
burned my hotel! Arson! That is what the judges call 
it—an indictable offense!” 

One of the sons of Ali smote Diomed over the mouth 
again, and nobody objected. There was a little something 
after all in his thought that fortune hardly favors Goan¬ 
ese. The sons of Ali fell back on the code of Sikunderam, 
which calls for incredulity at all times, but particularly 
when a Hindu makes a proposition. They looked what 
they were exactly—men from out of town. The smiter 
rubbed his knuckles. 

“Ye speak riddles,” said the spokesman. 

“You understand, that they who might set you at lib¬ 
erty, ignoring authority, would have the power to over¬ 
take and kill ?” asked the man in yellow. 

It began to dawn on Sikunderam that these were over¬ 
tures for a bargain. All three faces closed down in ac¬ 
cordance with the code that decrees a bargain shall be 
interminable and he who can endure the longest shall 
have the best of it. But the men in yellow were in haste. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


131 


One of them drew a long silk handkerchief from hand to 
hand with a peculiar, suggestive flick. 

“You understand that for all advantages there is a 
price ? Go free!” 

“But— but—” said the officer. 

The finger on his sleeve commanded silence. He 
obeyed. 

“Go free, in the fear of Kali, Wife of Siva, the De¬ 
stroyer ! Go free, until a day of reckoning! When Kali 
asks the price—observe!” 

As if one thought functioned in the minds of all three, 
one of the men in yellow stepped toward the Goanese and 
taking him by the shoulders jerked him to his feet. The 
Goanese was too astonished to defend himself. 

“Have I not offered—” he began; but the second of 
the three in yellow pushed him sidewise, so that he reeled 
backward on his heels toward the third. 

There was a motion of the handkerchief, as quick as 
lightning but less visible, and Diomed fell unpicturesquely 
—dead—a heap of something in a soiled check shirt and 
crumpled collar—so dead that not a muscle twitched or 
sigh escaped him. 

“For a death there must be a death,” said one of the 
men in yellow. 

The teeth of Sikunderam flashed white in a grin of 
pleased bewilderment. 

“Hee-hee! He didn’t slay your yellow man. We did 
it!” chuckled the spokesman. 

The Thug was at no pains to explain his beastly creed. 
It was better to leave the three less cultivated savages to 
speculate on what the sacrifice had meant. His point was 
won. He had impressed them. They had seen the swift- 


132 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


ness of the silken death. Undoubtedly they would soon 
begin to ponder on the fact that Diomed was slain in the 
presence of an officer of police, and to couple that with 
another mystery. 

“Go! Let them go!” ordered one of the three, and the 
officer began to fumble with the lock. 

He flung the door open with an air of petulant impo¬ 
tence, and it struck the cell-guard, who had crept back to 
listen. The door hit his heel as he ran and one of the 
three in orange-yellow stepped out into the corridor with¬ 
out the least suggestion of surprise. He beckoned him. 
Not a word was said. The second—not he with the hand¬ 
kerchief—held out a hand to warn the sons of Ali that 
freedom was postponed. The first man continued beck¬ 
oning, and the cell-guard kept on coming, carbine at the 
charge, as if he intended violence. But he stepped into 
the cell with his eyes fixed in a stony stare, as if he had 
been hypnotized. It was the second man’s turn to beckon; 
and as the “wretched, rash, intruding fool” obeyed the un¬ 
spoken call of nemesis, the third man used the handker¬ 
chief. The cell-guard fell in a heap on Diomed. The of¬ 
ficer picked up the carbine mechanically and laid it on the 
bench. 

“Now go!” said the spokesman, motioning the Hill- 
men out with a gesture worthy of the angel of creation 
bidding the aeons begin. “Kali is all-seeing. Ye can not 
hide. Kali is all-hearing. Ye may not tell. Kali is un- 
forgetful. Therefore, when a price is set pay swiftly— 
even as ye saw this man pay!” He laid a finger on the 
officer’s sleeve, who trembled violently. “For if not, ye 
will pay as these did!” He signified the corpses with a 
gesture. “Go!” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


133 


So the three went, wondering, not troubled as to what 
the official explanation would be, of three murders in a 
cell and three lost prisoners. The newspapers next day 
might call that mystery. To them another mystery was 
paramount, and all-absorbing: 

Who were the men who had released them? Where 
had they learned that skill with a handkerchief? Why 
had they slain Diomed? And why had they three been 
released? Moreover, what would the price be that was 
mentioned, and would they—three Moslems—be justified 
in paying it, suppose they could, to the priests, of a Hindu 
goddess? How much would they dare tell to Ali, their 
ferocious sire, considering the silence that was laid on 
them? And if they should tell Ali, and he should tell 
Jimgrim, for instance, and Jimgrim should consult the 
others, would the priests of Kali visit vengeance on them¬ 
selves as the fountainheads of disobedience ? 

There was more to it besides: 

If Kali was all-seeing, as the Three had warned them, 
did that simply mean that they were being followed ? 

He in the middle faced about suddenly and walked 
backwards with his arms in his brothers’; but he could 
see no Hindus in pursuit. They tried a score of tricks 
that Hillmen use when the stones are lifted in the valleys 
and the “shooting-one-another-season” has begun—tricks 
that the hunted leopard tries, to assure himself that he 
has left the hunter guessing wild. But though they hid, 
and strode forth suddenly from doorways, so that passers- 
by jumped like shying horses in fear of highway robbery, 
they detected no pursuit. 

“The man in yellow lied to us,” said one of them at 
last. “They let us go, and that is all about it.” 


134 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“But why?” 

“They were afraid.” 

“But of what ? They could have killed us easily.” 

“Nay! None slays me with a handkerchief! By the 
Bones of Allah’s Prophet-” 

“They could have slain the cell-guard in the passage, 
and could then have shot us with his carbine through the 
hole in the iron door. They were not afraid of us!” 

“Nevertheless, we three are afraid of them!” an¬ 
nounced the brother who had spoken first. The other 
two did not dispute the fact. “I say—if we are wise—we 
will—hold our peace—a little while—and wait—and see— 
and consider—and if perhaps—there should seem to be a 
need—and an advantage—then later we might tell. What 
say you?” 

“Allah! Who put wisdom into thy mouth ?” 

“It is wisdom! Let us consider it!” 

They agreed to use their own term, to leave the propo¬ 
sition “belly-upward” for a while. 




CHAPTER IX 
"silence is silent.” 

C YPRIAN was not in a quandary. He would have 
known what to do, but his eighty-year-old lungs 
were too full of a sickly-tasting gas for him to function 
physically. That which is born of the spirit is spirit, but 
the brain must wait on material processes. He was just 
then in Jeremy’s keeping—held in the Australian’s arms— 
being thought for by Jeremy. 

And as the stars in their courses once warred against 
Sisera, circumstances and his reputation combined to 
trick Cyprian. Never would it have entered Jeremy’s 
head that dignity, discipline, responsibility to some one 
higher up were necessary ingredients of Cyprian’s code. 
Having saved the padre’s life the only other thing that 
Jeremy considered was "the game.” 

Then there were the neighbors. Right and left were 
locked godowns stored with merchandise. Opposite, be- 
135 




136 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


hind shade trees and a wall were Goanese, who would not 
have thought it moral, expedient, polite or safe to inter¬ 
fere in the padre’s doings uninvited, even supposing they 
had seen what was going on. And the heat prevented 
their seeing anything, for May was merging into June 
and none who could afford to stay indoors dreamed of 
venturing forth. 

The remainder of the street’s inhabitants were Mos¬ 
lems with a sprinkling of Hindus at the lower end; and 
every one of those knew Cyprian by reputation as a stu¬ 
dent, and perhaps a practitioner of black magic—a man to 
be feared, if not respected; moreover, a man with influ¬ 
ence. Nine out of any ten of them would have looked 
the other way if Cyprian’s house were burning down. 
The tenth in nearly every instance would have run as far 
away as legs or a bicycle could take him. 

The constable, whose duty it was to patrol that street, 
having quitted himself well with one arrest that morning, 
retired to a basement cellar to brag of his doings and 
gamble on fighting quails. 

On top of all that there undoubtedly had been some 
deliberate clearing of the street by influences never named 
but referred to, when spoken of at all, as “they.” The 
street was as peculiarly empty as it sometimes is when a 
royal personage is due for assassination. 

The obvious course for a man in Cyprian’s position, 
with three would-be assassins in his cellar and his whole 
house full of anesthetic, was to report at once to the 
authorities, leaving subsequent developments to take their 
course. But Cyprian was in no condition to give orders ; 
and none of the others, King included, cared to invoke of¬ 
ficial skepticism. No man, who confesses to himself that 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


137 


he is searching for a heap of gold as heavy as the Pyra¬ 
mid, and for the books that explain how the heap was 
accumulated, is exactly unselfconscious when official in¬ 
vestigation looms among the possibilities. 

There was furthermore Narayan Singh, unconscious 
—in itself an almost incredible circumstance; for that 
doughty Sikh is a drinker of notorious attainment and 
less likely than any of them to succumb to fumes. He 
had keeled over like a gassed canary. King and Grim 
were giving him first aid, considering his recovery of 
vastly more importance than any debatable obligation to 
call in the police. They knew the police for mere bun¬ 
glers at best and sheer obstructionists as far as true in¬ 
quiry was concerned. They knelt on the sidewalk one 
each side of the Sikh, who breathed like a cow with its 
throat cut; and Jeremy, holding Cyprian like a baby in 
his arms, came and watched. 

“If you can make him vomit, he’s yours!” he advised. 
“Get something functioning—no matter what. One nat¬ 
ural process encourages the next. Knead him in the solar 
plexus.” 

King and Grim, having tried all other methods, expe¬ 
rimented with Jeremy’s. 

“Damn it! There’s an antidote if only we could lay our 
hands on it,” said King. “I’ve heard about this stuff— 
saw its effects before. It’s a capsule as big as a rupee. 
They puncture it under a handkerchief. The minute the 
air gets to it the contents turn to gas. Beastly stuff burns 
the skin as it emerges, but changes again as it spreads 
and becomes anesthetic. The thieves who use the stuff 
carry the antidote with them. It’s all in one of Cyprian’s 
books.” 


138 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“If pop ’ud wake,” suggested Jeremy. But Cyprian 
only sighed. 

“Where are the three Hindus ?” Grim demanded. 

“In the cellar. Ali pitched ’em in there—first-class 
job. Chullunder Ghose is sitting on the hatch to keep ’em 
out of further mischief,” Jeremy announced. 

“Ramsden—where’s Rammy?” Grim demanded. 

“Here.” 

Jeff, with a cloth about his face well drenched in 
water, had been exploring the floor of the sitting-room 
on hands and knees for evidence that would explain the 
enemy’s method. He emerged through the front door, 
panting. 

“Gas is disappearing,” he gasped. 

“Rammy! Naravan Singh is going West! Get a 
move on! Get those three Hindus. Make ’em produce 
their antidote! Stop at nothing!” That was Grim with 
the mask off—dealer in fundamentals. 

So the purple patch that was the shadow of Jeff Rams¬ 
den ceased from existence on the white wall—simply 
ceased. He can be swift when occasion calls for it. 
Within, where more or less silence had been, was a great 
noise, as Jeff’s weight landed on the trap and that of 
Chullunder Ghose, capsized, complaining. 

“Off the trap! Lively!” 

Ali of Sikunderam and his sons had been lying belly- 
downward listening in vain for noises from below. Im¬ 
agination yearned for cries of pain and half-invented 
them. But the door was too thick, and sat too tightly in 
its bed for even their fond wish to get itself believed. 

“By Allah I swear I broke the legs of all three!” boast¬ 
ed Ali, face to the wood. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


139 


But he said no more, for Ramsden seized him by arm 
and leg and threw him clear, the sons scampering away 
on hands and knees before the like indignity could happen 
to themselves. Then Ramsden got his fingers into the 
only crevice, strained, grunted, strove and gave it up. 
The door and frame were jammed hermetically. 

“Crowbar!” 

All Sikunderam—to employ their estimate—scattered 
in search of cold iron, while Jeff continued torturing his 
fingers vainly. One of the sons came in from the street 
on a run with loot from a Moslem godown. Blood on his 
forearm told the story—view of a crowbar through a win¬ 
dow—action—acquisition. 

“Good!” said Ramsden, and the woodwork began 
splintering forthwith—old teak, as dry and hard as tem¬ 
ple timber, ripping apart with a cry as if it lived, and de¬ 
sired to live. 

“Get a rope—or a ladder!” Ramsden grunted. 

Out on the sidewalk, under Jeremy's running fire of 
comment and advice, Narayan Singh had vomited and 
was showing other signs of resuming the burden of life, 
as Jeremy had prophesied. Cyprian, on the contrary, had 
fallen into the easy sleep that overtakes old folk and in¬ 
fants, so that Jeremy, sniffing to make sure the gas was 
all gone, carried him inside presently and up the narrow 
stone stairs to the first-floor bedroom—clean, simple, se¬ 
vere as a monastery, yet comfortable, since only the need¬ 
less things were missing. 

The head of the bed was backed against an iron door 
that was papered over, white like the rest of the walls, 
with an overlapping fringe to hide the tell-tale crack. 

The legs of the bed were set tight against wooden 


140 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


blocks screwed down to the floor, with the obvious pur¬ 
pose of reenforcing the lock that was low enough down 
on the door to be hidden by the bed-frame. Jeremy 
noticed how tightly the casters were jammed against the 
blocks, as if they had been subjected to tremendous pres¬ 
sure, and it was that, as he laid Cyprian down, that 
caused him to scrutinize the door more curiously. 

. He is sure of his senses, having trained them. Too 
used to deceiving others’ eyes he disciplines his own. He 
could have sworn that the door moved—inward—by a 
fraction of an inch; that is to say toward the wall and 
away from the head of the bed. He tested it, after mak¬ 
ing sure again that Cyprian was sleeping, and discovered 
he could get the fingers of one hand in between the bed¬ 
post and the door. And there was a long mark on the 
wide paper covering the iron door, in proof that it had 
recently pressed outward against the bed. 

So either the lock was unlocked, or it did not func¬ 
tion, or else it had been locked again since he entered the 
room. 

Curiosity eats Jeremy like acid. He must know or be 
miserable. Mystery merely whets appetite. With an¬ 
other glance to make sure Cyprian was sleeping, he cau¬ 
tiously pulled the bed clear of the wooden blocks and 
rolled it a yard along the floor. Then he stooped to ex¬ 
amine the keyhole. There was no key in it, and there had 
not been, for it was still stuffed with soap, and a piece of 
white paper rubbed on to the soap was in place—Cy¬ 
prian’s modest effort at constructive camouflage. On the 
floor lay an irregularly oblong sliver of white stone—two 
inches by an inch. The door had been forced from the 
inside, recently. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


141 


Jeremy tore back the paper from door and wall in two 
considerable strips. The tongue of the old-fashioned 
lock projected not more than an inch into unprotected 
stonework and was merely resting now in a neat groove 
that the fallen sliver fitted. Nothing—on Jeremy’s side, 
that is—prevented the door from swinging open. He 
tested it with his fingers. It refused to yield. 

And he could swear he had seen it move when he first 
laid Cyprian on the bed. 

He glanced at Cyprian, half-inclined to wake him— 
glanced at the iron door again and speculated. 

“Probably the old boy keeps his books in there. 
Shock might kill, if he wakes and learns thieves are in 
the coop. Sleep on, Melchizedek!” 

Knowing the danger to himself of using firearms, in 
a country in more or less perennial rebellion, where the 
carrying of modern weapons is forbidden except for sport, 
Jeremy looked about him for an implement less compro¬ 
mising to himself. In a corner, behind a cretonne curtain 
under which the padre’s garments hung, he found an 
Irish blackthorn walking stick—a souvenir of Ballyshan- 
non days, where Cyprian once did temporary duty. The 
stick was as strong as a professional shillalah with twice 
the length—a deadlier weapon than gun or sword in given 
circumstances. 

Down-stairs Ramsden broke up the trap-door section 
by section—layer by layer. It was so thick and so well 
carpentered that nothing less than absolute destruction 
laid the hinges bare. By the time it was possible to reach 
the bolt, that swung in place across the whole width of 
the trap and bit into twelve-inch beams, there was no more 
sense in fooling with it, for the door was totally destroyed. 


142 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Jeff used the bolt for a purchase for his rope, the sons of 
Ali having failed to find a ladder, and went down hand 
over hand into the dark. 

Not even the eyes of Sikunderam could see more than 
an unexpected red light, and trash heaped in a mess be¬ 
low ; but there seemed to be less of the trash than when 
Ali had flung the three into the pit. Where a pile of 
boxes had been, that should have lessened Jeff’s descent, 
there was nothing to meet his exploring feet and he had 
to drop the last yard, for the rope was short. 

The next they all knew was a roar like a bull’s as Jeff 
joined battle with an unseen foe; and that was followed 
by an increase of the crimson glow and the indrawn roar 
of a furnace. It was like a glimpse into the bowels of a 
great ship, or into Tophet. 

“Come on! Help, you fellows!” was all the explana¬ 
tion Jeff had time for—English at that—a sure enough 
sign he was excited. 

King left Narayan Singh in Grim’s hands—came on 
the run—and swung down the rope like a sailor. And 
Chullunder Ghose was next, “so curious” as he explained 
it afterward, resembling a seaman less than any other 
being in the world, first jammed in the broken trap like a 
cork in the neck of a bottle—breaking the hold of the 
wood-work by sheer weight and strength—then suddenly 
descending with the rope like redhot wire between his 
hands, to fall the last yard and be met—as it seemed to 
him—by an ascending floor constructed of upturned 
splinters. 

And down on Chullunder Ghose in that unfortunate 
predicament there dropped Sikunderam in swift succes¬ 
sion, sire and sons, grateful for the cushion—but to Ai- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


143 


lah, not the babu—and stepping off without pausing to 
pass compliments. 

At the cellar’s farther end there was a door down, and 
the whole of Cyprian’s arrangements for the eventual 
holocaust of black books were plain to see in the light of 
a galloping fire. The holocaust was prematurely born. 
The three had set the match that was to have been Cy¬ 
prian’s torch on his last pilgrimage. The books, stacked 
hundreds in a pile inside an ancient pottery kiln, were all 
alight and the glue in the backs of some of the more mod¬ 
ern ones was priming for the rest. 

Cyprian had stacked ample fuel under them in readi¬ 
ness, but to that the three had added trash. There was no 
fire-door to be shut to exclude a draft; the furnace-jaws 
gaped wide. The chimney at the junction of Cyprian’s 
house and the godown was serving its ancient purpose, 
and the trap-door that Ramsden broke was letting enough 
draft to feed the ravening fires of Eblis. Out on the 
sidewalk Grim saw the shadow of sulphur-and-black 
smoke belching from the summit of the old quiescent 
kiln; Narayan Singh was left to do his own recovering, 
and Grim, guided by instinct, took the stairs four at a 
stride instead of plunging like an ifrit into Ramsden’s 
broken hole. 

He was just in time to see Jeremy swing the black¬ 
thorn down two-handed on the back of a head that 
emerged for reconnoitering purposes through the cau¬ 
tiously opened iron door. The blow would have cut the 
head clean off if the weapon had only been an ax. A 
man in yellow fell face-forward and his shoulders pre¬ 
vented the door from shutting, although some one tried 
to pull him back in by the feet. Simultaneously Grim and 


144 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Jeremy seized the iron door and wrenched it wide open, 
and a stab like a fork of lightning missed Grim by the 
thickness of a moonbeam—missed and was not quick 
enough, for Jeremy brought the blackthorn down on a 
long knife with a serpent handle, disarming a yellow, 
invisible some one, who dropped whatever else he held 
and retreated into deeper gloom. 

Cyprian slept on, moving his lips and old fingers as if 
dreaming. Jeremy, all-trusting in his own luck, signaled, 
passed the blackthorn into Grim’s hand and reached for 
matches. Grim agreed with him. With their feet they 
shoved the victim of Jeremy’s weapon back whence he 
had come and stepped through over him, closing the iron 
door at their backs. Then Jeremy struck a match—in 
time—exactly in the middle of the nick of shaven time. 
The blackthorn came in use again—crack on a wrist that 
thrust upward with another such knife as the first man 
had tried to sting with. The blow broke the wrist. Some 
one smothered an exclamation. 

“Curse these matches!” exclaimed Jeremy, and 
struck another. 

On the floor of a closet about ten by ten lay two of 
the Three. The man whom Jeremy had first struck was 
dead undoubtedly. The other’s leg was broken—Ali’s 
work—and now the wrist was added to his inconve¬ 
niences. He was writhing in pain, though making no 
noise, and all mixed up with the dead man. Evidently 
two of them had been carrying the fellow with the broken 
leg, and the third had run back through a door that faced 
the iron one—a rat in a stopped run, panicking this and 
that way. 

Jeremy struck another match and Grim tried the in- j 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


145 


side door. As he laid his hand on it the fugitive, finding 
retreat cut off below, came charging back and Grim re¬ 
coiled against the wall, guarding with the blackthorn like 
a singlestick. The man in yellow lunged at him with a 
knife such as the other two had used, but as he lurched 
forward with his weight behind the thrust the point of 
another knife knocked his upper front-teeth out and cut 
through his upper lip, emerging an inch or two, then turn¬ 
ing crimson in the flow of blood. Through the opened 
inner door came red light glowing and diminishing— 
glowing and diminishing—silhouetting Ali of Sik- 
underam. 

“It is all in the trick of the thrust, sahibs ” announced 
Ali, stooping over the victim to withdraw his beloved 
weapon. “See—the neck is broken—thus—the point of 
the knife goes in between two vertebrae, and Allah does 
the rest!” 

“What’s that fire below there?” Grim demanded. 

“The old kiln. Rammy sahib--” 

“What’s burning?” 

“All the priest’s books, praise Allah!” 

Grim’s face looked ghastly in the waning red light. 
In that moment he saw all his hopes go up in smoke and 
flame. 

“There’ll be a blaze through the top of the chimney by 
now that’ll bring the whole fire brigade!” he announced 
with resignation. 

“Not a bit. Trust Ramsden,” said another voice. 

Athelstan King came up like a stoker from a ship’s 
inferno, more than a little singed and sucking burned fin¬ 
ger-ends. 

“Ramsden found an old sheet of corrugated iron 


146 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


underneath the litter and bent it to fit the fire-door. The 
draft’s in control. It was hot work.” 

“And the books ?” Grim asked him. 

“Napoo! No more books! Where’s the padre?” 

“Fast asleep.” 

“When he learns this it’ll kill him,” said King with 
conviction, unconsciously confirming Jeremy’s first guess. 

Ramsden came up the narrow stairway and demanded 
light. The glow behind him was so low that his bulk in 
the door obscured it altogether. Grim cautioned him and 
opened the door into Cyprian’s room. The light fell on 
Ramsden’s singed beard and his clothes all charred in 
patches. 

“All red ash now,” he whispered. “No more smoke.” 

Jeremy tiptoed into the bedroom and stood looking 
down at Cyprian. Presently he felt his pulse. 

“Fever!” he whispered. “He’s unconscious.” 

Ramsden gathered up the man with the broken wrist 
and leg and laid him on the floor in Cyprian’s room. 
They all trooped in, followed by Ali and his sons, Chul- 
lunder Ghose last. The babu was the only one who 
showed any symptoms of contentment, although he, too, 
was singed, and burned about the hands. 

“Expensive consideration for man with family on 
microscopic stipend!” he remarked, removing a burned 
silk turban and readjusting it. “What shall do next?” 

None answered. None knew exactly what to do. 
One of Ali’s sons—the youngest—succumbed to the weak 
man’s impulse to invoke the Blessing of the Platitudes. 

“Silence is golden,” he announced sententiously. 

“Oh excellent advice! O god out of a Greecian box! 
O oracle!” Chullunder Ghose exclaimed. “All the wis- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


147 


dom of all those wicked books is incarnated into this fool! 
Silence is not only golden, it is silent! Silence is as si¬ 
lence does! Verb very sap! O sahibs, let us muzzle ail 
these men! Shut up this shop until darkness intervenes, 
then heat it, in jargon of Jimgrim sahib—same expressive 
—very! Beat all concerned, this prisoner included unless 
he gives us every information, plus!” 

"Plus what?” asked Ramsden. 

"Plus obedience—not like these sons of Himalayan 
mothers, whose only virtue is that they economize by 
sleeping mostly in the jail!” 

Ali was over by the window, looking out into the 
street. 

"My sons are here,” he announced grandiloquently, 
trying to hide a grin. 

"Where? Outside? Call them in!” King snapped. 
"We don’t want more publicity.” 

Ali threw the window open and beckoned. The sons 
came lumbering up-stairs like half-trained animals. 

"Tell the sahibs : how did you leave the jail ?” demand¬ 
ed Ali. Maybe intuition warned him that they had a 
splendid lie all cooked and ready to serve. 

"We fought our way out! See—we left our knives 
in the guts of the police! Each of us slew three men!” 

"Allah ! My boys! My sons!” exclaimed Ali. 

The others all looked down at Cyprian. Jeremy took 
a towel and put water on the old man’s parched lips. 
None—not even Ali—as much as half-believed the story 
of the fight with the police, but all knew it was based on 
lawlessness of some sort that would not add to Cyprian’s 
peace of mind when he should recover consciousness. 

"If he pulls through this, the worry and disappoint- 


148 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


inent will kill him anyhow,” said Ramsden, rather ignor¬ 
ing the circumstance that for upward of eighty years 
Cyprian had been training himself to withstand the slings 
of fortune. 

“We might give the old boy a chance,” suggested 
Jeremy. And in his eye there gleamed antipodean 
mischief. 

Ali was still at the window. 

“Lo, a constabeel!” he announced. “He observes 
smoke issuing from the chimney without a tikut.* Lo, 
he speaks with Narayan Singh, who lies to him. A child 
can tell you when a Sikh lies. Lo, he writes a reeport in 
his parketbuk.t There will be a summons before munic¬ 
ipal magistrates. I know the custom.” 

Narayan Singh, a little weak yet as to equilibrium, 
came up-stairs and thrust his head cautiously through the 
bedroom doorway. 

“There will be a summons for smoke-nuisance against 
a Hindu, name of Murgamdass,” he announced with a 
grin. 

Grim caught all eyes, glancing from face to face, as a 
captain measures up his team in an emergency. 

“Did the policeman appear suspicious?” he asked 
quietly. 

“Very!” Narayan Singh answered. “He suspected a 
Hindu of seeking to avoid payment of fee for necessary 
permit to use furnace within municipality. I confirmed 
his plausible suspicion, hoping-” 

“Anything else?” Grim asked him. 

^Ticket. The English word is used to mean any kind of 
pointed and numbered permit. 
fPocketbook. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


149 


“No, sahib. Nothing else.” 

“You fellows game?” 

Grim caught all eyes again. If they were not game, 
none are. There were all the brands and all the elements 
of that geist that is all-conquering because it simply can 
not understand defeat. 

“Two courses,” Grim announced. “We can call in 
the police, and quit.” 

Chullunder Ghose sighed like a grampus coming up 
for air. 

“Or we can carry on and face the consequences. Vote 
please. Those in favor-” 

Chullunder Ghose raised both hands; all the others 
one. 

“Ayes have it. Very well. Then after dark we’ll 
take these two dead yellow-boys and plant them where 
their friends put da Gama. Meanwhile, take Cyprian 
somewhere and get a good doctor for him. Don’t say 
who he is. Ali, you and your sons guard the prisoner 
while we find a good place to hide him in.” 



CHAPTER X 

"can't hatch a chicken from a glass egg" 

T HAT night there stood in front of Cyprian's an ox¬ 
cart, tented and painted to resemble the equipage 
of old-fashioned country gentry’s womenfolk. Chullun- 
der Ghose had conjured the thing from somewhere, mag¬ 
nificent Guzerati bullocks included, selecting the form of 
conveyance least likely to be interfered with by police. 

But to make assurance on that ground doubly sure 
there was Narayan Singh as driver, naked of leg and oth¬ 
erwise garbed as a Hindu, reenforced by Ramsden and 
two of Ali’s sons, the latter shaven, and so angry at hav¬ 
ing to adopt Hindu disguise that it would have called for 
a whole squad of "constabeels” to arrest them. 

Directed by Ramsden the corpses of the two followers 
of Kali were laboriously trundled by the oxen as far as 
possible in the direction of the scene of da Gama’s death, 
and thence carried by Ali’s protesting sons, who dumped 
150 





THE NINE UNKNOWN 


151 


them naked into the debris where the Portuguese had 
lain, and rolled the same broken pillar over both of them 
that once had helped to hide da Gama’s remains. 

Judged as corpses they would have looked more edify¬ 
ing in the orange-yellow smocks they wore in life, but 
smocks, dyed just that color, are not purchasable in the 
open market. Thrift is thrift—the careful use of op¬ 
portunity. 

In another part of Delhi a more dangerous negotia¬ 
tion was proceeding, rendered no easier by the almost un¬ 
conquerable yearning to fall asleep that was the natural 
consequence of two nights’ wakefulness in Punjab heat. 

It was Jeremy’s proposal. Grim had seconded. King 
demurred. Chullunder Ghose had so squealed and 
chuckled with approval, vowing the whole proposal a 
stroke of genius '‘better than the gods could think of,” 
that King gave in. 

They drove the still unconscious Cyprian, wrapped in 
a blanket, to Gauri’s house and lodged him there—a mem¬ 
ber of an order of strict celibates, in the house of a lady 
of Rahab’s trade! 

“What’s the odds? He doesn’t know it,” argued 
Jeremy. 

The lady was over ears and eyes in delicious respon¬ 
sibility—intrigued until her fat ribs shook with giggling 
—unaware of the patient’s identity, for they had put him 
into a nightshirt, but as sure as that the stars were shin¬ 
ing, that life—her life as she loved it—was being lived. 

“If you hold your tongue you shall have for yourself 
one full share, equal to that of each of us, in whatever we 
discover,” Grim explained to her. 

“But let one hint drop, and you eat my knife!” said 
Ali. And Gauri believed both of them. 


152 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


In all lands where the laws are written for the benefit 
of privilege there are smugglers—not only of contraband 
jewels and rum, but of contraband knowledge and skill. 
There are men, who belong to no certified profession, 
who can do as well for you in the way of experience, and 
at half the price, as any blockade runner can in the mat¬ 
ter of lace or tobacco. No license confers skill, any more 
than payment of the duty improves art. Many a doctor, 
barricaded from or pitched out neck and crop from his 
profession knows more than the exclusive orthodox. But 
he has to follow yEsculapius and Galen in peril of im¬ 
prisonment and fine. That is the point. He must not 
talk. 

None knew, and none cared, why Doctor Cornelius 
MacBarron might not any longer use the title legally that 
his patients conferred on him gratefully, whether the law 
approved or not. For one thing he was an Eurasian— 
fifty-fifty—Caledonian Light Infantry on one side, and a 
dark mama—no sinecure to go through life with. So 
he might not choose. What people said to or concerning 
him he had to tolerate, extracting now and then adver¬ 
tisement, more profitable than solacing, from the scanda¬ 
lous—even if merited—slanders of the regular profes¬ 
sionals. 

It was bruited abroad in Delhi—behind the drug¬ 
store counters, and in mess-rooms, and elsewhere—that 
at absurdly reasonable prices Cornelius MacBarron would 
cure anything—and what’s more, hold his peace. He was 
said to have quite a wide following, and to know more 
secrets than a banker. 

Whatever he knew, and whomever he recognized, he 
said nothing when brought in a cab in broad daylight to 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


153 


the Gauri’s scandalous abode. With the long, lantern 
jaws and raw bones of a Scotsman, sad brown eyes, an 
unenthusiastic presence and a sallow skin, he did not 
seem to invite conversation or curiosity. Rather he re¬ 
pelled both. 

“There’s your man,” said Jeremy, showing him Cy¬ 
prian in Gauri’s scented bed. “Cure him if you can.” 

MacBarron did not ask, “Who is he?” but “Is he 
hurt ?” 

“No. Sick. Old. That’s all,” answered Jeremy. 

“My fee will be fifty rupees—per visit,” MacBarron 
announced, as if saying his prayers. 

Jeremy produced the money. MacBarron folded it, 
and spoke again— 

“Leave me alone with him, please.” 

Whereat Jeremy demurred, but was overruled by the 
others, who conceded, under the inspiration of Chullunder 
Ghose, that it was reasonable. A man without the right 
to practise has excuse for dispensing with witnesses. 

MacBarron emerged from the bedroom about fifteen 
minutes later and announced, like a verger opening pews, 
that in his opinion the patient would recover. 

“He must lie still. Here is a prescription. Let him 
drink it as often as he will. You may pay me now for a 
second visit; that is wiser.” 

So they paid him, and he was on his way to the wait¬ 
ing cab when King detained him. 

“Not so swiftly! We’ve another job. Do you mind 
walking ?” 

MacBarron minded nothing if he was paid. King led 
him through narrow streets to a place where three alleys 
came together on the right-hand side and a high wall on 


154 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


the left with a narrow door in it concealed the lower story 
of a minaret, whose mosque had long since succumbed to 
the ravages of time. 

The door opened when King struck three blows on it, 
and Ali’s dark face appeared in a challenging scrutiny. 

“He groans much, but says nothing at all,” Ali an¬ 
nounced abruptly, and turned his back to lead them in. 

The minaret was Ali’s good provision. Wakf, the 
system of Moslem endowments for charitable purposes, 
is as liable to abuse as any other human scheme for stand¬ 
ing off the evil day. Ali’s blood-brother, having lent his 
sword in a blood-feud to which a wealthy merchant in the 
Chandni Chowk was party, was now in receipt of a com¬ 
fortable income and the job of muezzin to a minaret with¬ 
out a mosque. In theory he was supposed to cry the sum¬ 
mons to prayer at the appointed times, but in practise he 
was neither seen nor heard, lest busybodies should inquire 
into the source of his revenue. 

Naturally, no man with a sinecure like that would be 
willing to share it for nothing. He demanded hotel 
prices, and was indignant when Ali withheld ten per cent, 
as his own commission. B'ut the virtue of him was that 
he was just as much bent on secrecy as any one, and the 
watch he kept in consequence was priceless. Even after 
Ali had admitted King and MacBarron within the wall 
Ali’s brother examined them and grumbled at having to 
entertain half Delhi. 

“Is this a Salleevayshun-armee-khana?” he demanded. 

King led MacBarron by the winding inner stair to a 
room at the top of the minaret, where the muezzin was 
supposed to sleep, and whence the now decrepit gallery 
was reached by a narrow door in the masonry. The door 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


155 


was closed, and such light as was available came through 
a six-inch slit in the wall, for Ali’s brother would permit 
no artificial light for fear of attracting attention. 

On a truck bed in the darkest part of the round room 
lay the sole survivor of the three who had burned Cy¬ 
prian’s books. The whites of his eyes gleamed in dark¬ 
ness, but the rest of him was nearly invisible, for they had 
taken his yellow robe away, and his coppery, dry skin was 
of a shade that nearly matched the gloom. It was too hot 
to endure blankets. 

MacBarron glanced at him, and then at King without 
visible emotion. 

“My fee will be a thousand rupees,” he announced. 

“Check do?” 

“Cash.” 

King was obliged to return and obtain the money 
from Grim. That took time, because Grim had to send a 
messenger to cash his check. When King reached the 
minaret again the prisoner’s leg was already in plaster of 
Paris brought by Ali from a Goanese apothecary’s, and 
the wrist was being manipulated in spite of the Hindu’s 
protests. They had tied him to the bed; there was no 
other way of controlling him. The only thing he had not 
done to make trouble for them was to cry aloud. 

“That arm must come off,” announced MacBar¬ 
ron five minutes after King’s return. “The reason is 
this-” 

He went into details, deeply technical, displaying the 
same fearlessness in diagnosis that an engineer does when 
ordering parts of a locomotive scrapped. His objection 
to witnesses had vanished, for it was obvious that none 
of this secretive batch of clients would dare to expose 



156 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


him; and he had sufficient sense for situations not to ask 
the prisoner’s permission. The whole conversation was 
in English until he bent over the bed at last and, looking 
straight into the victim’s eyes, said curtly in Punjabi— 

“Your arm must come off at the elbow.” 

That produced speech at last—coppery, resonant ar¬ 
gument all mixed with threats intended to convey one 
point of principle: Anything—anything went; they 
might burn him living; he would not resist. But he 
would enter whole into the next world, with his right 
wrist fit for Kali’s service! If they sought to take his 
arm off he would work a vengeance on them! If they 
did not believe that, let them take the first step! 

“Hocus-pocus!” said MacBarron, not particularly 
sotto voce. 

“Is the leg all right ?” King asked him. 

“It is set. It will heal. He will limp.” 

“Good enough. Please come again this evening,” said 
King. 

“To cut the arm off? Very well. That is two visits 
in twenty-four hours. Two hundred rupees extra. In 
advance.” 

King paid him, and he went. 

“By Allah, we of Sikunderam, who think we will 
plunder India when the British go, must first take lessons 
from that man!” remarked Ali. 

“Go below and keep watch!” ordered King, and in a 
minute he and the prisoner were alone together, looking 
in each other’s eyes. 

“Want to lose your arm?” 

The man grinned in agony. The grin was half-grim¬ 
ace, but there was defiance and even amusement there. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


157 


“The arm that knows the trick of the handkerchief— 
the killing arm?” 

King put as much cruelty and mockery as he could 
summon into his voice. 

But the trouble was that King knew well how far in 
the worst extremity he would be willing to go. And what 
was strength of character, too manly to take full advan¬ 
tage of helplessness even for any reward, the other could 
read but could not understand. He misinterpreted it as 
weakness—fear. Whereas about the only fear King has 
(and that unspoken—secret—sacred in his inner-being) 
is that he may not in some crisis quit himself as if all the 
decent fellows in the world were looking on. 

“Will you amputate?” asked the Hindu, pointing to 
the injured wrist with his other hand and grinning again. 
He had feared MacBarron. He was no more afraid of 
King than a priest is of policemen. The worst of it was 
King knew well that, whatever power this fellow might 
have of summoning assistance without the use of obvious 
means, he would not use it except in dire necessity. 

There is no rule more strict than that, probably be¬ 
cause the penalty for breach of it is unimaginably awful. 
Radio is a joke, a mere clumsy subterfuge, compared to 
the gift some Indians have of communicating with one 
another across great distances. Every man who has the 
least acquaintance with the East knows that. But they 
don’t give up their secret even in extremity, or use it 
without unquestionable reason. 

It was possible that he might tell secrets under the 
torture and fear of amputation. But King was not mor¬ 
ally capable of doing that. Instead he tried bribery—a 
bargain he would have said. 


158 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Keep your arm and join us. You may have one full 
share in any discovery we make.” 

The man laughed genuinely—just as copper-voiced as 
he was copper-skinned. It was as if some devil in an un¬ 
seen world had reached over and struck a gong in this 
one—three rising notes and then the overtones, all 
mockery. 

King laughed too, on a descending scale. He appre¬ 
ciated—what few from the Western Hemisphere can 
realize—that money, a material reward, or any of the 
compensations that the West deems valuable have no 
weight whatever in the calculations of the thinking East. 
The politicians and a few of the bunnia class have 
swapped old lamps for new, but at the very mention of 
western money or wisdom the old East laughs. She can 
afford to. 

“All right,” King said. “Where are we then?” He 
turned his face away deliberately, as if discouraged. “If 
I can’t overcome you, what do you propose to do with 
me ?” 

He gave the man time to consider that, then met his 
eyes again—objective-thinking Anglo-Saxon challenging 
the East that thinks subjectively or not at all. Neither 
could pierce the other’s veil. 

“You are no use,” said the Hindu, letting his head 
fall back on the folded blanket that served for pillow. 
His eyes were alight with fever. 

In spite of the intolerable heat King made sure that 
the door leading out to the gallery was locked, for who¬ 
ever dares set limits to the capacity of esoteric India is 
likely to find himself surprised. Then he left him, giving 
orders below to keep on the qui vive and not to give the 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


159 


prisoner water or information. He would let the man 
torture himself a while and lift his veil in his own way. 

And presently at Gauri’s house, superintended and 
giggled over by Gauri and her maid, King, Grim and 
Jeremy put on the three orange-yellow smocks that had 
been the garb of the enemy, coppering their skins with 
some compound of vegetable greases that Gauri procured 
for them, and changing every expression of their faces 
until Gauri and the rest pronounced them perfect strang¬ 
ers. Then Grim and Jeremy submitted to King’s drill, 
which was exasperating in insistence on minutest details, 
Gauri prompting him. 

“Do you think you could manipulate a handkerchief 
the way you saw it done?” King asked, tossing one of 
Gauri’s long silk scarfs to Jeremy. 

He imitated perfectly the swift, apparently effortless 
pass from hand to hand. There is nothing that Jeremy 
can’t imitate. Nothing was lacking except the will to kill 
by strangling the victim, and the secret of how it is done. 

“Can’t hatch a chicken from a glass egg,” he said apo¬ 
logetically. “I’m safe until I thug somebody.” 

King was insatiable—drilling, drilling, making them 
repeat all manner of proposed behavior in emergency, 
until they struck at last from very weariness, and Gauri 
brought cooling drinks and comfort in the shape of 
flattery. 

“Perfect!” she told them. 

“Nevertheless, this deferential babu, like wholesale 
tiger smelling traps invariably, would better accompany 
this expedition,” said Chullunder Ghose. “Obesity is 
only disadvantage—curiosity impelling—adipose imped¬ 
ing—striking happy medium at all times-” 



160 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“You be still!” commanded King. 

“Certainly, sahib! I desist! Am silent! Sublime 
satisfaction in service of noblemen makes obedient babu 
dumb! Your humble servant. Mum’s the word, like 
Yankee skirmisher in No Man’s Land! Neverthe¬ 
less-” 

He paused, looking up under lowered eyelids like a 
meek, ridiculous, fat schoolgirl. 

Grim recognized the reference to a Yankee skirmisher 
as an appeal to himself. “Spill it!” he ordered. “Be 
quick.” 

“Silence being self-imposed on all three sahibs, some¬ 
body should come along to scintillate with clever verbiage. 
Self being otherwise unoccupied-” 

“Whatever you said would give the game away,” 
Grim interrupted severely. 

“Even secret hymn to goddess Kali?” 

He intoned it, throwing out his chest and making a 
pig’s snout of his fat lips around the lower bass notes, 
that rumble and roll like the voice of the underworld glo¬ 
rifying in destruction, making of cruelty, death and dis¬ 
ease sweet satisfaction for the dreadful bride of Siva. 
Few ever heard that hymn who were not initiates of 
Kali’s dreadful cult, or- 

“Were you ever held for the sacrifice?” King asked 
him suddenly. 

“Sahib, I am superstitious! Reference to secret de¬ 
tails of risky past might cause repetition of same, which 
decency forbid! Am dumb!” 

He would not tell how he had learned that hymn. He 
knew the value of it, and of silence. He was 
indispensable. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


161 


“No extra charge!” he announced with pursed lips. 

“One break and you’re fired!” said Grim. 

“One break and we are all dead!” he retorted. 
“Awful! Yet—at my age—nevertheless—how many last 
chances I have had! Cat-o’-nine tails is rank outsider 
compared to most of us! Whoever boasted of dying 
daily had me in mind. Verb, sap” 

They waited until long after dark, when Ramsden re¬ 
ported the safe disposal of two corpses, and was detailed 
to take care of Cyprian. 

“Tell him he’s in the house of an Indian gentleman, 
whose wife can’t very well interview him in her husband’s 
absence,” Grim advised. “Say his own place was full of 
gas, so we had to lock it up. If he asks any more ques¬ 
tions, tell him the doctor says he must sleep.” 

Narayan Singh was told off to await the doctor. 
Then the three, Chullunder Ghose following, set forth on 
what was actually a forlorn hope. 

“Pray, you men!” said King, half-laughing. “If we 
can’t get an inside track to the Nine through this man, 
we may as well admit defeat. He’s dry—full of fever— 
in pain—half-conscious. We can fool him now or never.” 

They could almost fool themselves. Their shadows 
on the street wall so resembled the parts they played that 
they had the sensation of being followed by assassins, the 
heavy footsteps of Chullunder assisting the suggestion. 

They totally fooled Ali of Sikunderam and his suspi¬ 
cious brother. Ali thrust his long knife through the 
partly opened door in the wall and threatened to dis¬ 
embowel the lot of them unless they made themselves 
scarce. 

“By Allah, shall a Hindu set foot on the sacred thresh- 


162 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


old of a mosque?” he demanded, as the rightful keeper 
of the place shifted a lantern this way and that behind 
him to expose the intruders better. 

The voice of Chullunder Ghose was revelation—im¬ 
piously making use of holy writ from the shadows in the 
rear: 

“And they came unto their own, but their own re¬ 
ceived them not. Even in A. D. seventy they knew the 
nature of Sikunderam! Give sop to Cerberus, sahibs! 
Price of admission is payable in Beehive brandy!” 

“I knew it all along!” said Ali with a curt laugh. 

“Aye, any fool would know ithis brother agreed. 

“Open the door then, fools!” 

Chullunder Ghose waddled in first, pushing aside the 
two custodians, bowing in his three employers, retiring 
again behind them to hold up both hands like the leader 
of an orchestra directing pianissimo. Thereafter not a 
word was said. 

In creaking, bat-winged darkness they four mounted 
the minaret stairs, pausing each half-dozen steps to listen 
for sounds from above. Chullunder Ghose, holding a 
flask of water destined for the prisoner’s use when he 
should acquire the right to it by bargain, stopped on the 
rickety floor below the upper room and sat, cross-legged^ 
with his face toward the opening through which the other 
three must pass—a square hole at the stair-head. Low 
sounds—human speech assuredly—emerged through it, 
using some other than the ordinary language of the 
streets. 

The words ceased as King in the lead reached mid¬ 
way up the last flight of stairs. A face appeared in the 
Opening—coppery even in that dim gloom—a new face. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


163 


not the prisoner’s. King, never hesitating, took the next 
step and the others followed. A word would have be¬ 
trayed them. But even the babu—he particularly—rose 
to the heights of instant self-command. 

A stanza of the hymn to Kali rose from the babu’s 
throat like a burst of faraway organ music, and the face 
in the opening withdrew. King went on up. He had not 
hesitated. He was not lost. 

Keeping step, not hurrying, not looking to the right or 
left but purposely moving like men in a dream, the other 
two followed him through and sat down alongside him 
in the attitude the three book-burners had taken on Cy¬ 
prian’s yak-hair carpet, Jeremy at one end. 

The owner of the unexpected face thrust his hand 
against the door that led to the gallery, letting in suffi¬ 
cient star-light to reveal the orange-yellow of his long 
smock. Then he sat down facing them, with his back to 
the wall by the head of the bed. 

He said something, using a language that is dead— 
extinct—that never did exist according to some authori¬ 
ties. Instead of attempting to answer, all three bowed 
low from the waist with their hands palms-outward, like 
temple images come to life. And again Chullunder 
Ghose’s gorgeous barytone burst forth in praise of death. 

There is this about ancient mysteries. Nine-tenths of 
them, if not more, are forgotten and the words a genera¬ 
tion passes to the next one—“mouth to ear and the word 
at low breath”—if not a substitute are no more than a 
fragment of lost knowledge. He who had spoken in 
perhaps the mother-tongue of lost Atlantis was content 
to carry on in Punjabi. 

“Ye heard his call, too? Brothers, ye were awake! I 


164 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


came up the outside and broke the lock with a chisel. Ye 
were cleverer! Ye did not slay, for I hear the voices of 
the guards down-stairs. Ye did well. Are there orders? 
Ye are not of my Nine, for ye make no answer to the 
signal.” 

Speech was impossible. Their one chance was to pre¬ 
tend to a vow of silence, such as fakirs often take. In¬ 
stead of speaking Jeremy flicked the handkerchief from 
one hand to the other with the diabolical, suggestive 
swiftness of a past-practitioner of Thugee. 

The man by the head of the bed betrayed astonish¬ 
ment—maybe disgust. 

“By whose order should he die?” he demanded. “I 
have tested him according to rule. He has not betrayed. 
His failure is not complete. He—they—two of them are 
dead—burned all the books because they could take none. 
This one sent the Silent Call to give us information. He 
deserves life.” 

He paused for an answer. And the first sign having 
succeeded, Jeremy repeated it—as an executioner whose 
patience was exhaustible. 

Promptly, as if they had rehearsed that very combina¬ 
tion, Chullunder Ghose sang of the death that is Kali’s 
life, and his voice boomed through the opening in praise 
of pain that is Kali’s ease—and of want that is her 
affluence. 

That tide in the affairs of men that Shakespeare sang 
was surely at flood that night! It brimmed the dyke. He 
by the head of the bed was aware of it, restlessly. 

“The Nines are no longer interlocked as formerly,” 
he grumbled. “One Nine has an order that another coun¬ 
teracts. There is confusion. There is too much slaying 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


165 


to hide clumsiness. Our plan was patterned on the true 
plan of the Nine Unknown, but we are a bad smell com¬ 
pared to their breath of roses! They know, and are Un¬ 
known. We do not know, and too many know of us.” 

A thrill that commenced with King and passed 
through Grim reached Jeremy, but none of them con¬ 
fessed to it. They sat still, expressionless, three bronze 
faces staring straight forward, only Jeremy’s fingers 
moving in the overture to death. The long silk handker¬ 
chief flicked back and forth like a thread in the loom of 
the Fates. 

The man on the bed groaned dismally, and as if that 
were a signal for the bursting of the dyke that stood be¬ 
tween ignorance and understanding—for there always is 
a dyke between the two, and always a weak point where 
the dyke will yield if men can only find it—he by the 
head of the bed called up from his inner-man the lees of 
long-ago forgotten manliness. Then not in anger, but 
calmly as became a follower of the Destroyer’s Wife, he 
cast his ultimatum at the three. 

“I, who shall be slain for saying this, yet say this. 
Listen, ye! Dumb be the spirit in you as the lips your vow 
has sealed! This man, whom ye have come to kill because 
he failed, lest failure be a cause of danger to worse devils 
than ourselves—is my friend!” 

He paused, appearing to expect some sign of aston¬ 
ishment. Friendship is treason to Kali. Comment was 
due, and Chullunder Ghose obliged, hymning new stan¬ 
zas in praise of Her who annihilates. 

'This man once spared me. I spare him. Ye shall 
not sacrifice him. Hear me! I came, not knowing who 
he was. Ye came, knowing. Your orders are to kill him. 


166 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Mine are to go to Benares and slay one said to be a true 
Initiate of the Nine. B*ut I am weary of all this. Ye 
shall not slay; I will not—unless ” 

He paused again, making no motion with his hands. 
But he left no doubt there was a weapon within reach 
with which the argument might be continued if conven¬ 
ient to all concerned. Jeremy’s hands moved, but only to 
manipulate the handkerchief. He, Grim and King all had 
pistols, so no need for hurry. King broke silence, sparing 
words like one who mistrusts speech— 

“We three have grown so weary of it all that a watch 
was set on us, lest we fail.” 

Confirming that, Chullunder Ghose’s barytone 
hymned one more stanza to the Queen of Death. The 
man on the bed groaned wearily. In the street the sound 
of revelry—the last verse of a drunkard’s love-song— 
announced and disguised the news that Narayan Singh 
arrived on the scene with the doctor. 

“If there is only one who watches you, is there any 
reason why we four should fear him ?” asked the man by 
the head of the bed. 

That sounded like a trap. In dealing with the secret 
brotherhoods it is safe to suspect that every other question 
is asked for precaution’s sake. The wrong answer would 
be an astringent, drying up confidence at the source. 

“So be one died—” said King, not daring yet to speak 
openly, because he did not know the key-phrases that 
identify man to man. 

The other nodded. 

“I am not an executioner,” he said. “Let your broth¬ 
er use his skill.” 

And he nodded suggestively at Jeremy. The man on 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


167 


the bed groaned again. Chullunder Ghose was abso¬ 
lutely still. From below came Narayan Singh’s carousal 
song and the voices of Ali and his brother commanding 
silence in the name of decency. 

It began to be clear to King that his suspicion was 
accurate—that the members of one Nine did not know the 
members of any other Nine and had no means of challeng¬ 
ing. Each Nine reported to its chief, who in turn was 
one of nine. That was what da Gama said, and though 
the Portuguese was not to be believed without delibera¬ 
tion, even deliberation must have limits. King took the 
chance. 

“I have no means of testing you,” he said. “You do 
not respond to my signs.” 

“Nor you to mine, brother! Let us then give pledges 
satisfactory to each.” 

“If we let this fellow live,” King answered, and 
paused, observing that the man by the head of the bed 
pricked his ears. 

He remembered that as Kali’s follower he must not 
offer to deprive the goddess altogether of her prey. 
There must be a substitute. 

“Will you betray the Initiate of the Nine to us in 
Benares in order that we may not fail to make Her a 
sacrifice ?” 

“No!” came the answer—abrupt and firm. “Substi¬ 
tute him who sings to Her below there!” 

It was time for heroic measures. Insofar as reason 
applies to murder, he was reasonable. And besides, King 
was aware of a sound in the outer darkness that Chul¬ 
lunder Ghose heard too, for the babu sang to drown it. 

“I believe you are an impostor! I believe you know 


168 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


nothing of Benares! I believe you are that faithless mem* 
ber of another Nine whom we were told to watch for! 
If there should be a substitute I think that thou-” 

King pointed an accusing finger at him. Jeremy 
made the handkerchief perform like a living thing. It 
even looked hungry.. 

“Nay, nay!” said the other. 

“Show me proofs!” said King. 

The subtle noises in the night had ceased and there 
was now no cause for hurry. It was almost possible to 
see—as one could sense—the pallor on his face as the 
man by the head of the bed reached out to push the door 
a little wider open and admit more starlight. Whatever 
his weapon was, he had to see clearly to use it. As his 
wrist reached out across the opening a huge hand closed 
on it—from outside. 

It was no use screaming, though the blood ran cold. 
The followers of Kali train themselves to self-control. It 
was no use moving, because two repeating pistols, King’s 
and Grim’s covered him. 

He could not speak. Terror, the stronger for being 
suppressed, gripped him tighter than the unknown hand 
that held his wrist against the door-frame like material in 
a vise. 

The door of the minaret below slammed suddenly, 
and one man was heard to enter. King felt the wheels of 
destiny turn once and drop the finished solution like a 
gift into his hand. Destiny had chosen the right man, 
and his assistants waited on him, saying nothing, offering 
no advice, not even glancing sidewise to observe him. It 
was apparent to the man by the head of the bed that they 
all three acted on instructions in accordance with a pre- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


169 


arranged plan, that which is obvious being untrue nine 
times out of ten. 

“You are he whom we should watch for,” King said 
slowly. “There is talk of your sedition. That is why 
they sent you to Benares. That is why you were picked 
to sacrifice that true Initiate of the Holy Nine.” 

King paused and took another long chance. Had not 
the others acted in threes? “You were ordered to Be¬ 
nares, where two others should join you. You, who can 
not use the handkerchief, were to be decoy. We are 
they who should have met you in Benares! Yet you can 
no more tell which of us three are the two than you could 
escape from the task imposed on you!” 

The man’s jaw dropped. He believed himself taken 
in the toils of the relentless machine that owned him and 
a thousand others. There is no more paralyzing fear 
than that. 

“You would have cheated HER!” said King. 

He rose and made a sign to Grim and Jeremy that was 
not easy to mistake. They lifted the unconscious prisoner 
off the bed and, taking more care of his bandaged leg 
than was quite in keeping with the circumstances, carried 
him down through the opening in the floor. From below 
came the sound of one short strangling cry. 

“Clumsy!” said King. “He lacks practise!” 

Then there was whispering and the sound of a dead 
weight being carried down wooden stairs. The door be¬ 
low slammed. There was the noise of men’s feet outside 
—then of wheels. First Grim returned, and then Jeremy. 
The expression on their faces was of great elation sup¬ 
pressed and crowded to the point of near-explosion. 

“You will go to Benares. You will lead to the slaying 


170 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


him who was appointed for the sacrifice. You will be 
judged thereafter by the judges.” 

Some gesture that King made must have been visible 
from the outer-gallery, for the hand that held the wrist 
let go. The door was shut tight from without. In the 
ensuing darkness King descended, leaving Grim and 
Jeremy to guard the new prisoner, and Chullunder Ghose, 
holding both sides in silent laughter that made tears 
stream down his cheeks, motioned him toward the ground 
floor. Chullunder Ghose remained where he was, wal¬ 
lowing in exquisite emotion. 

Narayan Singh, descending by broken masonry, grop¬ 
ing for foothold, found his foot in King’s hands and so 
reached terra f irma. 

“Sahib, it would seem the gods are with us! The doc¬ 
tor has a place where he can treat that patient better than 
in this tower. He and I brought a litter on wheels and 
men to push it. The babu signaled me that there were 
doings up-stairs, so I climbed by the broken masonry, 
knowing the value of surprise in an emergency! Shall 
the doctor amputate ?” 

“Tell him no,” said King, “but keep him 
incommunicado 



CHAPTER XI 

"ALLAH! DO I LIVE, AND SEE SUCH SONS?” 

T HERE was a cellar below the minaret—a mere en¬ 
closure in between foundations, but no less prac¬ 
ticable as a dungeon on that account. Therein they 
cached the prisoner with Narayan Singh and three of 
Ali’s sons on guard, instructed not to show themselves to 
the man they guarded but to be as rabid as wolves at bay 
toward all trespassers. 

Then, because a good rule is to hold your conferences 
where not even friends expect you, King Grim and Jeremy 
went and sat like great owls in the shadow of a wall above 
a low roof several hundred yards away. There they could 
see one another and not be seen. 

King met Grim’s eyes. Grim met King’s. The two 
spoke simultaneously— 

“You were right!” 

“Pop Cyprian won’t believe it though!” laughed 

171 





172 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Jeremy, yawning. “Sleep under the stars, you blighters! 
Here goes then !” 

He curled himself up, and was breathing like a kitten 
in a moment. 

“There are two Nines!” King said with conviction. 

“The real gang, and this Kali outfit!” Grim agreed. 

“Right! But as Jeremy says, Cyprian won’t believe 
it.” 

King faced toward Grim and as if playing cards they 
tossed deductions to and fro, each checking each. “One’s 
good. The other’s bad.” 

“The Kali outfit patterned their organization after the 
real Nine’s, in the hope of stumbling on the secret.” 

“They’ve spotted a real Initiate of the Nine.” 

“Bet you! Maybe one of the Nine. Marked him 
down. Expect him in Benares.” 

“Told off this man-in-yellow to kill him.” 

“What for? Qui honof Ring in one of their own 
thugs to pose as the dead man ?” 

“Probably. He might discover something before the 
remaining Eight get wise.” 

“But why pick a man who can’t use the handkerchief, 
and whose loyalty must have been questionable ?” 

“Probably he’s the only one who can identify the pro* 
posed victim.” 

“If so, they’ll watch him.” 

“Which means they’ll have watched him to-night!” 

“Uh-huh. They must have seen him enter the 
minaret.” 

“Good thing we left Narayan Singh on guard.” 

“You bet—and those three sons of Ali’s who were in 
trouble with the police. They’ll fight like wolves.” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


173 


“All nerves. Better than watch-dogs. What next?” 

“Sleep!” said Grim. 

And they did sleep—there on the roof, where none but 
the stars and the crescent moon could see them and only 
Chullunder Ghose knew where to track them down. 

Chullunder Ghose slept too, hands over stomach and 
chin on breast, with the broad of his back set flat against 
a wall and his whole weight on the trap-door that pro¬ 
vided access to the cellar—turban over one ear—so asleep 
that even minaret mice (hungrier than they who live in 
churches) nibbled the thick skin of his feet without awak¬ 
ing him. 

The North—Sikunderam in particular—can sleep, too, 
when it has no guilty conscience; and it begins to meas¬ 
ure guilt at about the deep degree, where squeamish folk 
leave off and lump the rest into one black category. None 
the less, although the sons of Ali yawned when Narayan 
Singh posted them around the iron-railed gallery, with 
orders to keep one another awake and summon him at the 
first sign of an intruder, yawning was as much as it 
amounted to. They sat like vultures on a ledge and list¬ 
ened to the Sikh’s enormous snores that boomed in the 
waist of the minaret. (He calculated that the second 
floor, midway of either, was the key to the strategic 
situation.) 

Nominally each of Ali’s sons from where he sat could 
view a hemisphere, so that their vision actually over¬ 
lapped. But in practise there was one whose outlook in¬ 
cluded a high, blank wall, over which it was humanly 
impossible for an enemy to approach, because there were 
spikes along the wall, and broken glass, and beyond it 
were the women’s quarters of a much too married rajah. 


174 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


So that one—Habibullah was his name—was more or 
less a free lance, able to reenforce the others or to spell 
them, without that extra loss of self-respect that might 
otherwise have attended desertion of a fixed post. Nara- 
yan Singh had said, “Sit here—and here—and here.” 
But he had evidently meant “Divide the circle up between 
you.” So Habibullah construed it, the other two confirm¬ 
ing ; but it%as an hour before anything happened. Then: 

“One beckons,” said Ormuzd—he facing due east. 
There was a roof in that direction on which the light 
from a half-shuttered upper window fell like a sheet of 
gold-leaf. “One sits like a frog in a pool and beckons. 
Come and see / 7 

So Habibullah, having faced west long enough, 
changed his position and sat by Ormuzd. 

“Huh! He beckons. Is his garment yellow, like that 
of him we slew in the jail, or does the light make it seem 
so?” 

They watched with the infinite patience of Hillmen 
and all hunting animals, until^ the third brother came 
around to lend two eyes of flint—just one look and away 
again, back to his post. 

“He beckons , 77 he agreed. 

“Does he beckon to us or — 77 

“To us!” said Habibullah. “Moreover, he is clothed 
in yellow. The light shows it. He is one of those who 
loosed us from the jail . 77 

As if confirming Habibullah’s words, the man on the 
roof in the pool of light raised up a Himalayan tulwar, 
shaped so exactly like the one that Ormuzd left in the 
police station that the two who saw it thrilled like women 
seeing a lost child. The northern knife is more than 
knife. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


175 


“What does he want with us, think you ?” 

“Go and see!” 

“That drunken dog of a Sikh who snores within there 
will awake and-” 

“Never mind him. Climb down by the broken edges 
of the stone. We have done worse many a time in our 
Hills ” 

But caution is as strong as curiosity in the mind of 
Sikunderam. No Highlander who followed Bonnie 
Charlie to his ruin was as hard to pin down to a course— 
or harder to turn from one, once on his way. Habibullah 
sat and weighed the pros and cons—including the likeli¬ 
hood that he in the pool of light might be a shaitan —un¬ 
til the other two cried shame on him. His reason in the 
end for going to investigate was fear that their loud argu¬ 
ing might wake Narayan Singh and that the Sikh might 
possibly claim all the credit for some discovery. 

Hand over hand at last he went down the broken side 
of the minaret—leaped like a goat on to the street wall 
above the heads of Ali and his brother, who were sleeping 
the sleep of innocence in the shadow of the gate—and 
gained the street. 

But none came to meet him, as he had half-hoped. He 
was left to his own devices to find a way up to the roof 
the man had beckoned from—not nearly as easy a feat 
as threading the bat-infested ledges of eternal hills. In 
one street an unwise “constabeel” presumed to demand 
what his business might be; whereat Habibullah ran for 
half-a-mile in zig-zags, never losing direction; and fi¬ 
nally, by way of a stable and the iron roof of a place 
where they sold chickens, he climbed to a point of vantage 
whence he could look down from darkness into the pool 
of light. 


176 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“His-s-s-t!” he remarked then to attract attention. 

And a second later his skin crawled like a sloughing 
snake’s all up his spine and then down again. 

The man in the pool of light took no notice, but another 
had leaned out of the darkness almost within arm’s reach 
and, flashing a little electric torch, grinned straight into 
his face. 

“You should go to him—go to him—he beckons, does 
he not ? Go to him then!” he whispered. 

The whisper was the worst part of it. If he had 
spoken out loud Habibullah would have tried a little 
bombast to reassure himself. As it was, the creepy sensa¬ 
tion increased; nor was there any knowing how many 
other men there might be grinning at him from the dark¬ 
ness—grinning at him who had no knife! He could see 
one of his brothers—just a shadow motionless among the 
shadows of the minaret, and the sight made him lonelier 
than ever. 

“Why wait for the handkerchief ?” suggested the voice 
beside him; and that settled it; Habibullah leaped down 
on to the roof like a young bear, making all the noise he 
naturally could. 

But the noise did not startle the man in yellow, who 
sat in the midst of the pool of light. It did not as much as 
annoy him. He smiled—a beastly, bronze, arrogant smile 
that chilled the blood of Habibullah worse than the other 
man’s whisper had done. 

“You beckoned?” said Habibullah, forgetting that he 
who speaks first most often has the worst of it. 

The other shifted himself out of the patch of light 
suddenly, and left Habibullah standing there. 

“Did I beokon a fool for the police to shoot at?” he 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


177 


asked from behind a chimney. “Their nets are laid. The 
order is to seize all strangers from Sikunderam. You 
and your brothers are as sure of death as the fat sheep in 
the butcher’s hands, unless—step this way out of the 
light, fool!” 

Habibullah obeyed, and was sorry he obeyed, on gen¬ 
eral principles. 

“Who are you?” he asked. He tried to make his voice 
sound truculent, but it was only desperate. He wished he 
had not come. 

“You left the jail without asking who I am. Why ask 
now ? Better obey me.” 

“In what respect?” 

“In all respects!” 

Obedience is a hard pill to force down the throat of a 
Hillman. The fact that he thought himself helpless did 
not sweeten the dose for Habibullah. The other was a 
Hindu, which made it worse. So he said nothing, as the 
only way he knew of nursing his disgust, and perhaps the 
man in yellow believed that silence signified assent (al¬ 
though perhaps not. He was wise in some ways.) Nev¬ 
ertheless, he proceeded to display his ignorance. 

“There are two men dressed like me in that minaret.” 

“Tivo men?” said Ali, looking hard at him. 

“Two!” he answered positively. “One is injured. 
One is whole. The whole one is at fault and the injured 
one has failed. Both die to-night. It is your business to 
admit three of us into the minaret.” 

“Mine?” 

“Yours and your brothers’” 

“But— B'ah! By Allah, what you ask is impossible! 
We are not alone there. There is a Sikh-” 


178 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“True. And a babu. Do they not sleep?” 

“But there are others, who keep watch outside by the 
door in the wall.” 

“Aye, and they sleep, or how didst thou escape un¬ 
seen ? Kill them, too, and earn merit!” 

Habibullah withdrew again into the silence, for emo¬ 
tion choked him. He could contemplate killing Narayan 
Singh and Chullunder Ghose with comparative calm, even 
while doubting that three of them could master the tur¬ 
bulent Sikh. But to murder in cold blood, without warn¬ 
ing, Ali ben Ali of Sikunderam, sire, tutor, patron, 
paymaster, hero, bully and belligerent accomplice, was 
something that not even sons of the Hills could consider, 
say nothing of do. Hardly believing his ears he bridled 
speech, the slow, dour cunning of the mountains coming 
to his aid at last. The limit of amazement being reached 
—fear having worked its worst—he rose above both like a 
swimmer coming up for air. 

“How much will you pay?” he demanded. 

The man in yellow laughed—a conquering laugh all 
full of scorn and understanding. 

“Rupees, a thousand!” he answered. 

“Show me! Pay now!” 

Habibullah stooped and held his hand out—mocking. 
He did not believe that man in yellow had a thousand 
rupees, certainly not that he would part with them. But 
the other produced a roll and counted the money out in 
hundreds: 

“—eight, nine, ten!” he said, placing the lot in the 
Hillman’s extended hand. “Blood-money! These are 
witnesses!” 

He made a sound exactly like the hum of a bronze bell 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


179 


struck with a muted hammer. Instantly two faces, thrust 
forward into the light like disembodied phantoms, 
grinned at him. 

“Go! Kill! And when you have killed set a lantern 
on the gallery of the minaret!” 

Habibullah glanced down at the ten bank-notes that 
his fingers closed on, and all the Hillman’s yearning for 
the hardest bargain ever driven surged in his ambitious 
breast. 

“How shall we slay without weapons ?” he demanded. 
“The police had our tulwars - ” 

The man in yellow interrupted him by passing hilt- 
first the tulwar that he had used to signal with. It was 
not Habibullah’s own. He raised it—possibly to glory in 
its balance as it quivered like something golden in the 
window-light—yet even so perhaps not; for the North 
is quick to use the unsheathed argument. 

He was aware of the click of an old-fashioned pistol 
in the dark not far behind him, so he lowered the tulwar 
again and thumbed the edge of it. Concession had bred 
appetite: 

“We are three,” he said. “We had three weapons— 
two more such as this.” 

“Aye,” came the instant answer. “Thine and anoth¬ 
er’s. That is not thine. That will be claimed by its own¬ 
er. Thine and the other may be had for service 
rendered.” 

It was shrewd. No knight of the Middle Ages set a 
value on golden spurs one atom greater than the Hill¬ 
man’s superstitious reverence for his knife. With it he 
reckons himself a man; without it, something less, and so 
is reckoned. 


180 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Nevertheless, the greater the weight on one side of a 
bargain, the more determined should the haggling be. 
That is scripture. Habibullah cast about for an alterna¬ 
tive and landed a good one at the first attempt. 

“You say two yonder must die? My brothers and I 
might kill those, saving trouble with the Sikh, who is a 
man of mighty wrath, to kill whom would offend his mas¬ 
ters. Better bind him while he sleeps, and tell him after¬ 
wards that others did it. Then kill the babu, who is use¬ 
less and has the tongues of ten women. Whereafter slay 
—we three could slay—the two men you say are due to 
die to-night.” 

That was a long speech for Habibullah. It produced 
a profound impression and he struck an attitude while the 
two disembodied faces appeared in the shaft of light again 
and conversed with number one. They spoke a language 
he knew nothing of, and displayed skill in the use of light 
and shade that was beyond his understanding, for al¬ 
though he screwed his eyes, and dodged, he failed to see 
anything but faces; and in the end he began to be afraid 
again, more than half-believing number one was speaking 
with spirits of the air. 

“Only the spirits don’t use pistols,” he argued to him¬ 
self. And twice he heard the click of a pistol hammer as 
if some one in the dark were testing it, not nervously but 
as a warning. “I would like to lay this blade just once 
where the neck of that face should be!” he thought. 

And some one seemed to read his thought, for a pistol 
in a hand unconnected with any evident body emerged 
into the light and warned him pointblank. 

“We should have to see bodies of the slain,” said num¬ 
ber one at last in plain Punjabi; and the two faces 
vanished. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


181 


“All Delhi may see them for ought I care!” Habibul- 
lah answered, forgetting for the moment that there was 
only one prisoner in the cellar. 

“So we should have to enter the minaret.” 

“Lo, I make you a gift of the minaret!” laughed Ha- 
bibullah, growing bolder as he realized his point was 
gained. These were not such dangerous people after all. 
How his brothers would wonder when he regaled them 
with the account of his skilful bargaining! 

“You will need to arrange for us to enter,” said the 
man in yellow. 

Habibullah was silent, scratching his young beard, 
pondering what that proviso meant. 

“The guard at the gate must be slain,” his interlocutor 
went on. And Habibullah’s beard continued to be 
scratched, a row of milk-white teeth appearing in a gap 
in the black hair as his lower lip descended thoughtfully. 

Strange arguments appeal to savage minds. The rock 
on which Habibullah’s wit was chafing itself keen just 
then was not the stipulation to kill Ali of Sikunderam 
(for that was excluded—imponderable—abstract—not to 
be reckoned with, and having no weight)—but the puz¬ 
zling, protruding, concrete circumstance that he in yellow 
did not dream of entering the minaret by any other way 
than the front door. 

Could he not climb? Was he lazy, or afraid, or 
proud? What was the matter with him? No man, hav¬ 
ing murder in his mind and able to command the very 
captain of the jail, was worth taking seriously if he only 
thought in terms of front-doors! Habibullah knew ex¬ 
actly what to do now. 

“There is no other way than to kill those who guard 
die gate,” said he in yellow. 


182 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“No other way,” Habibullah agreed. “I will do it.” 

“How will you let us know when the work is done 
and the gate is unlocked ?” the other demanded. 

“We will light a lantern and carry it thrice in a circle 
around the gallery. Then come swiftly, for we will open 
the door and wait for you ; and we will tell the Sikh after¬ 
wards that it was you who bound him,” said Habibullah. 

He was not sure yet what he meant to do. But he was 
sure he would outwit the man in yellow, whom he thor¬ 
oughly despised now, not fearing him even a little, so 
mercurial, albeit simple are the workings of the Hillman 
intellect. He had the man’s money. Why should he fear 
him? Who feared fools? Not Habibullah! Father Ali 
should have reason to boast of one son this night! 

Something of his thought exuded—emanated—some 
vague aureole of ignorant conceit emerging under the 
cloak of pretended assent. 

“Remember!” warned the man in yellow. “This is a 
part of the price to Kali, payable for your release from 
jail! There will be more to pay another time. And he 
who fails to pay Her the least particle of Her demand— 
is less to be envied than a woman dying as she bears a 
dead child!” 

Habibullah shuddered, and recovered. He was not a 
woman, praise be Allah! 

“It is time I go,” he said abruptly, and in a moment he 
had swung himself down into the street along which he 
could see the “constabeel” vainly pursuing imaginary 
footsteps. He kept behind the “constabeel” and gained 
the minaret without accident. He was minded to beat on 
the door in the wall and swagger in triumphantly with all 
that story to relate and a thousand rupees to confirm it 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


183 


With. Only the suspicion that the man in yellow possibly 
could see him from the roof prevented. 

He still did not know how the Hindu should be 
tricked. He knew that pocketing the money for a mur¬ 
der he had not the remotest intention of committing was 
only part of the business. They must be fooled to the full 
taste of Sikunderam, and none—no man on Allah’s foot¬ 
stool—could do that half as well as Ali, father Ali, who 
was sleeping by his brother at the gate—father Ali, wili¬ 
ness incarnate! 

So he climbed the outer-wall like a bear in the hills, 
making much less noise than he normally did on level 
ground. And he dropped so lightly into shadow on the 
other side that Ali did not wake until the hot breath 
rustled in his ear. 

“Look, father Ali! Look!” 

He held the money—all that money!—most incau¬ 
tiously in the rays of the hooded candle that bode in a 
crevice of the wall against emergency. Ali—waking— 
seized the money—naturally—even before he rubbed his 
eyes. It was in the hidden pocket under two shirts, and 
with a sheepskin jacket double-buttoned over all, before 
poor Habibullah could protest. 

And then, in the righteous wrath of an outraged sire, 
Ali ben Ali rose and cursed his son for daring to absent 
himself from post without permission! 

“Allah! Do I live—and see such sons ? The dung a 
pigeon drops on a ledge will stay there! Yet you leave! 
O less than ullage! Less than the stink of a debauch— 
for that clings! Son of all uncleanliness, get to thy perch 
again!” 

So Habibullah went, for there was no gainsaying fa- 


184 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


ther Ali. He who had slain in seven duels the husbands 
of the mothers who had borne the sons he claimed, was 
not to be withstood by one son single-handed in the hour 
of rising wrath. The necessary element was speed, and 
Habibullah used it, shuddering as a new curse hounded 
his retreat. 

Nor did he enter the minaret, for that would have 
been to awaken the babu and the Sikh too soon, before 
he—Habibullah—should have time to think. He climbed 
by the broken masonry again like a steeplejack, and 
swung himself up on the gallery between his wondering 
brothers. 

“Mine!” said one of them, pouncing on the tulwar. 

“You shall have it in exchange for mine!” said Ha¬ 
bibullah, snatching it away. “Peace! Listen!” He had 
done his thinking. “Father Ali bade me say this: He 
will beat whichever of you leaves the gallery! He gave 
me other work to do.” 

Which untruth being loosed, and therefore off his 
conscience, Habibullah entered the minaret through the 
gallery door and descended the creaking stairs, after care¬ 
fully fastening the door behind him lest his brothers over¬ 
hear and make a hash of what should be a neat, nice piece 
of strategy. 

He was angry with father Ali—not to the point of re¬ 
bellion yet, but full of indignation and desirous of re¬ 
venge. He was minded to take his information to a man 
who, all his faults considered, was a generous soldier of 
mettle and resource. The money was gone; but the 
chance for a creditable deed remained; and if his own 
brains were insufficient for the task, he knew where to 
find sufficient ones. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


185 


So he stooped over Narayan Singh and checked him 
in mid-snore. The Sikh seized his wrist and let go again. 

“The foe?” he demanded. “Trespassers?” (Who¬ 
ever is not friend comes into Narayan Singh’s category 
of “foe,” to be dealt with accordingly.) 

“Hus-s-s-sh!” warned Habibullah. “Let the babu not 
hear!” 

“No! Let the babu sleep!” Chullunder Ghose called 
up on his seat on the hatch. “There is first the thunder 
and then these whisperings! My God, for the gift of si¬ 
lence in these precincts! Oh, well, oh, very well, I come! 
Unfortunate babu is slave of circumstances in all things!” 

He came waddling up the stairs, and struck a match 
so suddenly that Habibullah cursed him. 

“Hillman’s curse is Hindu’s blessing!” said the babu 
piously. “Now spill the beans! Unleash the dogs of war 
and let speech coruscate! Give her gas!” 

So Habibullah could not help himself. He was 
obliged to tell his tale to both men, neither of whom be¬ 
lieved him because he could not show the thousand rupees 
that he boasted of having “lifted” from the man in yellow 
on the roof. In fact the whole tale was too fishy, coming 
on top, as it did, of that other yarn about fighting a way 
out from the police cells. 

“That I should leave a virgin bed on a trap-door for 
this!” Chullunder Ghose sighed. “I lie, thou best, he lies 
—what unregenerated Prussian calls die Lust zum Fabu - 
lieren! ‘Gas!’ I said, and he delivers hot air! Oh, deliver 
me!” 

“If you could prove a word of it—” Narayan Singh' 
suggested sleepily—“I might believe the next word; and 
if that one were true I would credit a third, and so fur- 


186 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


ther. As it is, if you are not back in your place on the 
gallery within-” 

But Habibullah was desperate, and desperation has re¬ 
sources of her own. 

“What if I bring the three in yellow to the front gate? 
Will you help me slay them ?” he interrupted. 

“I would like to slay them,” said Narayan Singh. 
“Whoever promenades the streets in yellow with the mark 
of Kali on his forehead ought to be severed between skull 
and shoulders. Go back to the gallery and keep watch! 
In the morning I will tell your father Ali to discourage 
lying with a thick stick!” 

“Lend me a lantern. I will prove it to you!” said 
Habibullah. 

Chullunder Ghose arranged his turban sleepily. 

“Observe a symptom of in vino veritas,” he remarked, 
“wine being possibly imagination in this instance. The 
savage believes what he says, even supposing same is 
untrue.” 

Narayan Singh rose with a sigh and discovered a lan¬ 
tern he had hidden where none else would find and adopt 
it. He lit it with blasphemy, burning his fingers, ordered 
the babu back with his fat hind-quarters on the trap-door, 
looked disgustedly at Habibullah, shook himself to make 
sure the weights were there that told of hidden weapons, 
and yawned. 

“Forward! Up-stairs! Prove it! If you fail to 
prove it, over with you!” 

Habibullah led the way. With the lantern in the 
skirts of his sheep-skin coat, lest the enemy catch sight of 
it before the stage was ready, he stepped out on the gal¬ 
lery, with the Sikh peering over his shoulder suspicious 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


187 


of tricks. Then he ordered his brothers inside, they pro¬ 
testing volubly, making a show of disinclination to desert 
the post. Narayan Singh was deeply edified. 

“Dogs on a dung-hill are as noisy and as timid !” he 
said pleasantly. “Better kneel in there and pray for good 
sense—if Allah is listening! Now, show thy proof!” 

He shoved Habibullah outward to the railing and was 
close behind, but Habibullah begged him to stay in the 
open door and watch the light streaming from a window 
over a roof some way in front of them; and still suspect¬ 
ing trickery the Sikh obliged. He could not stand up¬ 
right, but bent forward with a hand on either post. 

Then Habibullah, holding the lantern in his left hand, 
turned to the right and made the circuit of the gallery 
three times, swinging the lantern constantly to call atten¬ 
tion to it. And when he had made the third circuit, as it 
were of the walls of Jerico, the light streaming from the 
[window that Narayan Singh watched went out suddenly 
—yet not so suddenly as when one switches off the cur¬ 
rent. Some one invisible had held an obstacle between 
the window and the minaret. He lowered it, and the 
light streamed forth again. 

“They have seen. Now they will come to the gate to 
be slain!” said Habibullah. “And if you, sahib , wish to 
have the credit for it all, take my advice and climb down 
this way, not waking father Ali!” 



CHAPTER XII 


“l AM DEAD, BUT THE SILVER CORD IS NOT YET CUT.” 

G RIM nudged King. King jerked at Jeremy's flow¬ 
ing Arab headgear. 

“Watch the minaret," Grim whispered. 

The crescent moon had gone down. There was no 
light other than the glorious effulgence of the stars. The 
minaret—a phallic symbol posing as sublime—rose state¬ 
ly and quiet from a pool of purple darkness. Nothing 
moved. Not even a dog barked, for a wonder. 

“Got the creeps?" asked Jeremy. 

“Watch the minaret!" 

A lantern appeared at the summit and disappeared— 
flashed for an instant, as it might be from the skirts of a 
protecting coat. Then, as whoever held it turned, its rays 
shone full on a man unmistakable—too tall for the door 
—bent forward in it, bearded and immense—Narayan 
188 




THE NINE UNKNOWN 


189 


Singh! The image was gone in an instant, but left no 
doubt. The Sikh was alert and moving. 

“Something’s wrong,” said Grim. 

“Wrong with your nut!” said Jeremy. 

The lantern flashed again, and this time did not dis¬ 
appear. In some one’s left hand—not Narayan Singh’s, 
for they could see the legs beyond it and they did not 
move as the Sikh’s would—it made the circuit of the gal¬ 
lery three times—then vanished. 

“What do you suppose that means ?” 

“Sons of Ali fell asleep and off their perch. Narayan 
Singh looking for remains of ’em!” suggested Jeremy. 

“It wasn’t Narayan Singh who made the rounds,” 
King answered. “That light to our right front disap¬ 
peared and came on again after the signal.” 

“Signals, sure!” said Grim. 

“Could the Sikh-” 

“No!” Grim answered. “Narayan Singh is O. K.” 

“Trick-work nevertheless,” said Jeremy. “There 
were three of Ali’s sons on that gallery. They looked like 
great horned owls and we wondered before we all went 
to sleep what it was that resembled horns. Remember? 
Where are the three now ?” 

“I vote we investigate,” said Grim. 

“Seconded!” 

“Unanimous!” 

They reached a dark passage by way of neighboring 
roofs and dropped to street-level, nearly frightening to 
death the same policeman who had been disturbed by 
Habibullah. The servant of the public peace retreated at 
full speed and left them all that part of Delhi for experi¬ 
ments—assassination—robbery—what they willed. Since 



190 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


nationalism raised standard and voice the streets have not 
been safe for a lone policeman. 

“If they’ve rescued our prisoner—” Grim began. 

“More likely garroted him to keep him from talking,” 
said King. 

“Well, in either event-” 

“We’re flummoxed!” 

King made no secret of his pessimism. He was all 
for action; all for reprisals; but he felt sure there had 
been disaster. 

“If they’ve got him, we’ve lost our inside track. We’ll 
never get another!” he said miserably. 

There were no street sounds as they made their way 
cautiously along the shadows. Now and then a dog 
yelped in the distance, but as happens often when the 
moon has gone down all the neighborhood seemed hushed. 
Just once they heard—or thought they heard a cry and 
the thump-thump-thump of something falling. Then all 
was still again. 

Suddenly a voice rose—high-pitched, eager, exultant: 

“My son! Oh, Allah! Oh, my son!” 

Another voice, low-growling, cursed the first one into 
silence. Then a door slammed. Voices again rose and 
fell in excited talk as it might be behind a wall; they were 
muted; the resonance was gone. 

Grim, in the lead, began running. The others broke 
into a trot behind him. Grim stopped and drew his pistol. 
King came abreast feeling for his own weapon. Jeremy 
did the same on King’s right. They were fifty paces from 
a man sitting in deepest shadow on a stone by the street- 
door of the minaret, who held his hand up, saying 
nothing. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


191 


“Narayan Singh!” said Grim at half-breath. 

“Hurt?” (That was Jeremy.) 

The Sikh seemed to be bending over something. He 
was holding up his hand for silence rather than to ward 
off an attack. He had recognized friends. They heard 
him growling in the general direction of the door, as if 
less talking behind him were what he craved. He rose as 
they approached, standing astride one fallen object, with 
another at his feet and a third behind him. 

“It is good you came, sahibs. If you will drag these 
corpses in I will climb the wall and break the necks of 
Ali’s sons! The sons of evil mothers shut the door on 
me, and are making more noise than stallions in a horse- 
camp !” 

King laid his head to the door in the wall and gave 
tongue in the guttural speech of Sikunderam: 

“Open, there, Ali! And silence!” 

The door opened wide in a moment and Ali stood 
framed in the gloom: 

“King sahib! Sahibs! Allah’s blessing! Lo my boy! 
My Habibullah! Pride of my old heart! He slew three 
yellow ones with three blows of a tulwar! Three in 
three blows! There they lie! Lo! Look! The tulwar! 
See the blood on it! See the nick in the blade where it 
bit too deep and struck the wall beyond! A smiter! Ho! 
A true son of Sikunderam!” 

“Peace! Silence!” ordered King, and turned again to 
help drag in the corpses of three men in yellow smocks. 

“He shall have a purse and fifty rupees in it!” Ali 
boasted. 

But Narayan Singh cut that short, brushing by him, 
straight forward to essentials, discovering Chullunder 
Ghose recumbent on the trap-door, acting dead-weight. 


192 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Back again, then?” said Narayan Singh—it might be 
scornfully. 

“In statu quo ” the babu answered, smirking. “Un¬ 
less dead, in which case disembodied spirit might emerge 
unobserved, prisoner is in durance vile beneath me— 
among rats!” 

“You weren’t here five minutes ago,” said the Sikh. 
“Get off. Let the sahibs see.” 

“I was certainly successful rogue in former incarna¬ 
tion,” said the babu, rolling to his hands and knees and 
heading for the door. “Karma* now reversing role, I get 
away with nothing—absolutely!” 

Narayan Singh raised the trap skeptically. Neverthe¬ 
less, the prisoner was there. He blinked up at Grim, 
King and Jeremy. Smocked like himself in yellow they 
exactly fitted the only mental picture he had. Priest of 
a dreadful creed, dread was his portion. Likely he was 
only kept from suicide by the teaching that he who robs 
Kali of the joy of killing in her own way is doomed to 
flicker in the astral gloom for aeons, useless and hopeless, 
until finally he ceases in darkness and never is. 

“Others were less fortunate than thee. To them no 
opportunity to make amends and ease the pangs of after¬ 
life! Behold them!” King said, speaking as if he him¬ 
self were Karma, judging dead souls. 

One by one—head in one hand, body in the other— 
Narayan Singh dumped the corpses of three followers of 
Kali down into the rat-infested dark; and Jeremy held 
the lantern so that he who had not lost his life yet might 
see and comprehend. 

*Karma. The law by which sins of a former life are inevit¬ 
ably compensated for in this life or a future one, and good 
deeds in the same way are rewarded. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


193 


“Consider them ” King warned him. “They died not 
by the handkerchief but by the sword, displeasing Her in 
death as well as life!” 

And outside, just beyond the rays of the candle set in 
the niche of the outer wall, Chullunder Ghose held high 
dispute with Ali of Sikunderam. 

“Shame ?” said the babu. “I am utterly disreputable. 
Therefore appreciate value to others of what I lack. I 
assess shame of Habibullah at rupees a hundred. Ante 
up, as Jimgrim has it! Make it slippery and soon, as 
Jeremy sahib would say!” 

“You have no honor!” Ali retorted hotly. 

“None!” agreed the babu. “All dishonor me—includ¬ 
ing you! Insult me with rupees a hundred, or I will tell 
who slew those three! Habibullah will then resemble egg 
thoroughly sucked by grandmother—all hollow! The 
money please.” 

“May the curse of the Prophet of Allah, whose name 
none taketh in vain, wither and disintegrate thy bowels! 
May the worms that die not eat thee! May food be to 
thee like ashes and thy drink as bitter as a goat’s gall! 
May thy-” 

“Certainly!” said the babu. “Money please! Or 
else-■” 

So Ali of Sikunderam drew painfully from some¬ 
where underneath his shirt—like a man pulling out a long 
thorn or a well barbed arrow-head—one bank-note for a 
hundred rupees, and the babu pouched it. 

“Then it is agreed,” said Ali, “that Habibullah slew 
those three with three strokes of his tulwar?” 

“Agreed,” said Chullunder Ghose. “Do you wish re¬ 
ceipt in writing with stipulation black on white? Will 
sign same. No extra charge!” 



194 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“See this!” said Ali, showing his own knife. “The 
bargain is made. You have the money. Keep faith, or 
feel this!” 

“My aunt!” said the babu, and shuddered. (But the 
shudder may have been the camouflaging movement un¬ 
der which he slipped the money into hiding.) 

King, Grim and Jeremy emerged from within the 
minaret, listening to Narayan Singh, who wiped his 
hands on a piece of sacking and talked in low tones. 

“Give Habibullah credit for it, sahibs. He was afraid 
of them, but what odds ? He and I climbed down by the 
broken masonry and waited in the shadow of the wall. I 
would have used a pistol, but feared the police, so when 
the three came near I said to Habibullah ‘Draw, and 
smite!’ The fellow’s hand was trembling so that he 
nicked the edge of the tulwar against the wall! And they 
came on, perhaps thinking we were waiting to welcome 
them. So I took the tulwar from him and struck three 
times. Then I gave the weapon back and said: ‘Well 
smitten! Good sword, Habibullah!’ And Ali heard, lis¬ 
tening through the key-hole. He opened the door and 
called his bastard in, slamming it again on me. So I 
waited, hoping no police would come to see the bodies and 
start trouble.” 

Grim laughed silently. He had seen the Sikh’s har¬ 
vest before, and could have told his sword-cuts from 
among a hecatomb. 

“Habibullah’s head will swell, though, if we let him 
boast of what he didn’t do,” said King. 

“Let it swell, sahib. It will fall the easier. These men 
in yellow are no Sadhus* blessing their enemies. They 


*Holy men. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


195 


hold revenge more sweet than a hill-bear does wild honey. 
Let Habibullah boast of it!” 

“Let's go!” said Jeremy suddenly. “I’m betting all 
I've got, those three were watched. For every one Nara- 
yan Singh killed there'll be ten on our track before 
morning!” 

The eyes of all four met in the light of the match that 
Jeremy struck to light his cigarette. All four men nodded. 

“Chullunder Ghose!” 

The babu heard King's low call and came on the run, 
like a hippopotamus in flight for water. 

“Quick now! Think!” King ordered. “Problem is 
to evacuate. Take away the prisoner—leave corpses here 
—all go somewhere safe, unseen. Do you think we can 
make the office in the Chandni Chowk?” 

“Oh golly!” said the babu. You could feel him grow¬ 
ing gray that instant. “Best imaginable is same ox-cart 
used for general obsequies under direction of Ramsden 
sahib. Same is at Gauri’s—probably—oxen asleep in gut¬ 
ter and-” 

“Go get it!” ordered Grim. “Narayan Singh, go with 
him! Send Ramsden back, and wait at Gauri's, both of 
you!” 

“For my emolument I take a manifold of risks!” Chul¬ 
lunder Ghose said. “Oh, fickle Fortune, I am undone 
this time! Eimm, Ollola, as Greeks would say! I 
vanish!” 

And he did. His adiposity was no apparent handicap 
when sweet life was at stake. He had the gift of making 
even Ali's sullen brother open swiftly, and the door 
slammed shut behind babu and Sikh before King and 
Grim could light their cigarettes from Jeremy's. There- 



196 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


after he made no more noise than a parish dog would, 
slinking down dark alleys. 

Followed conference. At best they would be a notice¬ 
able cortege marching in front and rear of an ox-cart 
drawn by such magnificent beasts as Chullunder Ghose 
would bring presently, if luck permitted. And at worst 
some one in yellow would tip off the police to interfere, 
perhaps accusing them of running contraband. Arrest, 
then, would be inevitable, and would mean the end of 
their investigation of the Nine Unknown. 

Evidently more than one of the spurious Nines was 
linked against them, all guided by an unseen hand. 
There was no guessing whence the next assault would 
come, although it was fair to presume it would be surrep¬ 
titious. Ali of Sikunderam, called into conference, turned 
Job’s comforter: 

“They say these followers of Kali have noiseless wea¬ 
pons, sahibs! Tubes that deliver a poisoned dart with ac¬ 
curacy as far as a revolver shoots! The poison is brewed 
from the venom of cobras and the blood of' vampires— 
very quick stuff. A man struck by it falls conscious, yet 
stupefied, and in great pain sees himself decompose until 
the stink from his own body suffocates him in the end!” 

“What do you advise ?” King asked him. 

“An exorcism! Let my brother hunt up a brewer of 
potions, and all the darts of Kali will never hurt us! A 
man known to my brother brewed me a potion before I 
returned to the Hills once on a time to establish Habibul- 
lah’s parentage. Behold me: I live! He who disputed 
my claim was buried in more than one piece and in more 
than one place! Ho! I scattered him among the vil¬ 
lages as Allah spreads the wind! I hewed him! I-” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


197 


“Good! Let your brother go,” King interrupted. 

There was virtue in the strange proposal. Ali’s 
brother was a surly, ill-conditioned brute, too long pos¬ 
sessed of a sinecure to be depended on. In a pinch he 
would be a positive handicap to whichever side he was on, 
and to be rid of him by any tolerable means was good use 
of opportunity. The brother himself provided all the ab¬ 
solution necessary. 

“I should be paid!” he objected. “They ask to have 
their lives preserved. They could not find the magician 
without me. They should pay me rupees fifty!” 

He could have had more, if he had only known. 
Grim paid him fifty and spoke him civilly, shoving him 
out through the gate. It was Jeremy, watching him 
curiously over the top of the wall where a broken stone 
provided a safe vantage point—just out of curiosity, to 
see which way he went, as he explained it afterward— 
who saw him shot down from behind by a dart that made 
no noise. 

A part, then, of Ali’s croaking had been accurate! 
His brother lay, if not dead, motionless. Jeremy, up at 
his niche in the wall, reported some one in what might be 
a yellow smock creeping up along the darkest shadows, 
searching the body, taking money and everything else he 
could find. Whereat Ali, using Habibullah’s back for 
vaulting horse, leaped on the wall with the stone in his 
hands that had once sat in Jeremy’s niche and, standing 
for better effect, hurled the stone down on the back of the 
head of the robber—and was gone down like a deep-sea 
diver in its wake before a voice could check him. None 
knew—not even he—whether he had lost his footing or 
just followed to make sure. 


198 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


They heard a skull crack under the impact of the 
stone, and Ali’s voice, calling before his feet touched 
earth for the door to be opened for him. King opened 
and admitted some one else! A man in a yellow robe, 
exactly like those they three were wearing, strode in and 
stood with folded arms confronting them—producing the 
effect of ice on hot imagination! Habibullah raised 
the candle. Its light shone on beads of sweat on the cru¬ 
ellest face, as the handsomest, that any of the three had 
ever seen. 

Bronze, as the other men had been. Smiling like the 
Sphinx—an incarnate enigma. Tall. Strong as a gorilla, 
judging by the heft and set of splendid shoulders. Stand¬ 
ing with the air of absolute authority that only years of 
use of it can give. In majesty, in intellect, and in im¬ 
pressiveness, as far above those others who had hounded 
them as eagles are above the beasts they watch. 

He stood in silence, and in due time with one finger 
pointed at the tell-tale cigarettes. Those contradicted the 
disguise of yellow robes and caste-mark. Surprise, or 
whatever it was that had numbed the minds of all three, 
now set King’s wits moving again. He wondered why 
Ali had not taken advantage of the open door, and strode 
to shut it before any more of the enemy could enter. He 
with the bronze face touched him on the arm. King 
kicked the door shut with his foot, and as the spring-lock 
snapped he turned about to face a weapon he knew well. 

He had cut his eye-teeth in the Indian Secret Service, 
and therefore knew the feel of hypnotism. He knew the 
only way to stand against it—switched his thought in¬ 
stantly to another object—anything—anything whatever, 
so be it served to concentrate his will and was outside the 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


m 

thought of the practitioner. Mathematics was King’s 
formula. They vary. Each man acts on experience, and 
some withstand while others fail. He worked out in his 
head the cube of 77, and turned to swing for the jaw of 
the hypnotist. 

His brain felt free but the blow failed. It glanced off 
as if guarded by a pugilist; and yet the newcomer had 
not moved. That was descent into subjection—step one! 
The others would follow swiftly. The man with the 
bronze face smiled at him, and King faced about—turned 
his back on him—worked with an ice-cold frenzy at the 
problem of the square of the hypotenuse—eliminating 
all else, visualizing the diagram—winning back to self- 
command and sanity. 

The other two stood motionless. As they described it 
afterward, they thought they had been struck by one of 
Ali’s fabled darts, making them inert while still aware of 
what was happening. They felt no pain, but there was a 
strange sensation in the ears and behind the eyes. 

King was not more than half-in-command of him¬ 
self. Habibullah and the other two of Ali’s sons were 
stricken with superstitious awe. And on the door that 
King had kicked shut Ali of Sikunderam was now thun¬ 
dering with a fist and the hilt of his knife; it sounded like 
marriage tom-toms in the distance—somewhere away at 
the other side of Delhi—yesterday—last week—months 
ago—anywhere and any time but here and now. 

“So it’s up to me, is it ?” said King to himself. 

He sized up his antagonist, and fancied matching 
strength with him still less than he did the risk of at¬ 
tracting police to the scene. Suddenly he drew his auto¬ 
matic. And as suddenly the man in yellow moved a hand 


200 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


that touched the pistol. A shock like electricity went up 
King’s arm and he dropped the pistol because he could 
not help it. The man in yellow, still smiling through his 
bronze mask, kicked it away into the shadows. 

“Any more weapons?” he asked—in English! His 
voice was as magnificent as his stature—as surprising. 

King knew he counted on the effect of it, for the hyp¬ 
notist works by rule of thumb and uses one trick after 
another until the resisting victim yields. He hung on to 
his remaining self-command like a man over-board cling¬ 
ing to an oar, and was conscious of the sound of wheels 
advancing up-street. He could hear bullocks’ feet. He 
knew what that meant. 

Ali’s hammering ceased, and just as suddenly began 
again. 

“What do you want?” King demanded—a very un¬ 
safe question to put to a skilful hypnotist, unless you 
happen to be just as skilful in defense. It was tanta¬ 
mount to lowering his guard by way of tempting an oppo¬ 
nent. But he knew that all he had to do was gain time 
now and keep the man’s attention. A hypnotist engaged 
in trying to master three strong men at once is as oblivi¬ 
ous to other sounds and circumstances as his victims will 
be when he has control of them. 

“You!” said the fellow with the bronze face. “Only 
you ! These are not strong enough!” 

He pushed Grim and Jeremy—brushed them aside 
with his left hand, and they fell to the ground as if he had 
pole-axed them. That of itself had almost been enough 
to overcome the last of King’s resistance, only that King’s 
face was toward the wall and the bronze man had his back 
to it. King saw something, the other did not even hear. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


201 


“You know so much, you shall be a Ninth, and later 
on perhaps a captain of a Nine!” He continued to speak 
English. 

The bronze smile never varied, but the dark eyes 
changed; they were considering King’s resistance, specu¬ 
lating as to the source of its strength, calculating which 
next trick to play. Slowly, the way a serpent moves ad¬ 
vancing on a spell-bound bird, his right arm began to 
approach King’s eyes, and every faculty the man owned 
was concentrated in one immense magnetic effort to in¬ 
duce a responding state of mind in King. King knew 
that if the finger touched him he would go down under 
it beaten—for the time at all events. 

He stepped back—saw the wall—again saw something 
else—another, less inhuman hand—stepped back again 
and shouted to help break the spell: 

“Rammy!” 

Jeff boasts that eight of him would weigh a ton. If 
so, two hundredweight and a half of solid bone and mus¬ 
cle landed from the top of the wall feet-first on the shoul¬ 
ders of the hypnotist—as unexpected and as efficacious 
as a mine exploded in a crisis! The hypnotist was caught 
off-guard, and all his deviltry was no more good. 

Slow to think and cautious as he always is, Ramsden 
had lain on the top of the wall to listen and look before 
jumping. He knew what to do. He had the whole plan 
mapped out in his mind. But he knew, too, that his only 
chance of executing it was to keep the bronze enemy en¬ 
gaged. Give him a minute’s respite and he would be as 
dangerous as ever. The two had gone down on the stone 
flags hard enough to knock the senses out of any ordi¬ 
nary men. But the enemy recovered as swiftly as a snake 


202 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


recoiling for the strike, and Jeff had to wade in fist-first 
whether he wanted to or not, taking the fight to him, 
giving him no grace for concentration, forcing him on 
the defensive, barking his orders at King like irregular 
explosions from a motor-car’s exhaust. 

“Let Ali in! Out o’ here! Leave this t’me! Get 
Grim! Get Jeremy! Quick! Quick! Cyprian’s! I’ll 
fix this-” 

Fixing consisted of catch-as-catch-can, no hold barred, 
all the fist-work thrown in there was time and room for. 
He of the bronze face knew his hour was come unless he 
could break the arms and legs of his heavy assailant. His 
occult powers were as contingent on environment and 
suitable conditions as are steam and electricity. 

Jeff knew he could expect no quarter. Weight for 
weight they were a match, and strength for strength—a 
man who had kept fit by wrestling because he loved the 
last ounce of the grit and guts he drew from the Great 
Quartermaster’s store—and another who had cultivated 
strength from a delight in mastery, and cruelty, and the 
ability to go unchallenged. The magic of good nature, 
slow to wrath, against black magic and relentlessness! 

It was not easy to judge which way the odds were. 

They tore, wrenched, struck and scrambled for holds 
like lions in the mating season when the lioness looks on. 
Once the man in yellow set his teeth into Jeff’s collar¬ 
bone and tried to tear it out; but that only offered Jeff a 
steady target for his fist; it was as good as a head in 
chancery; Jeff’s fist went home into the other’s jaw with 
a blow that put all hypnotism out of the question for the 
rest of that fight; it was like the thump of a pole-ax in 
the slaughter yards. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


203 


Every hold that either got was broken by fist-work or 
some other means that would be reckoned fouling in the 
ring. Again and again each crashed the other's head 
down on the stone flags. They fought beside the stones 
that had fallen from the summit of the minaret, striving 
to break each other’s bones against sharp comers. Once, 
when the man in yellow drew a deep breath, Jeff got 
three fingers in under his ribs and all but tore them out. 
That was the only time when pain drew a cry from either 
of them. According to Ali, who was hectoring his sons, 
dragging out the prisoner, helping King to carry out 
Grim and Jeremy, and narrating his own adventure be¬ 
tween breaths, they- looked like a tiger battling with a 
python as they rolled, heaved, struck and snarled for 
breath under the torture of each other’s holds. King said 
they looked like an illustration out of Dante’s Hell. 

They bled from collision with the masonry. They 
soon became so slippery with blood that no hold held, and 
that was when Jeff’s advantage gradually told—(if grad¬ 
ually means much in a fight that was as swift as the 
whirling typhoon is from start to finish.) Ramsden had 
the other’s arm bent backward around his head and was 
twisting it with one hand while he kept a scissors-hold 
and pounded the man’s eyes with the other fist—when 
King at last got the prisoner and Grim and Jeremy, with 
Ali’s sons for guard, into the covered ox-cart. 

King came on the run then. He reached the spot as 
the bronze man broke the scissors-hold and writhed heels- 
over-head to untwist the tortured arm. And as King 
picked up a broken stone to brain the enemy, Jeff rose— 
swept up his weakening man by neck and leg—lifted him 
—and with an effort born of twenty years’ clean living 


204 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


and good will hurled him head-first on to the flags. His 
skull cracked like an egg. 

“I said Ed fix him. Let him lie,” said Jeff beginning 
to feel himself for damages. 

“No, bring him,” King answered. 

Without waiting for the reason Jeff gathered up the 
still pulsating body and carried it outside to the already 
crowded bullock-cart. There Ali was holding forth to 
his sons, talking to them from the driver’s seat through 
the embroidered curtains: 

“Remember that, sons of forgetfulness! Bury my 
brother and bear it in mind against the day of revenge. 
He died like a fool, but I was wise. I felt the tingle of 
the magic and fell unresisting. Put him in the wagon 
gently. Lo, they took the rupees Jimgrim gave him! 
But I live! Hah! I lay considering how to attack that 
devil from behind! When the tingling left my bones I 
used my knife-hilt on the door, and if Rammy sahib had 
not come I-” 

“One man make room for this corpse! Let the pris¬ 
oner make its intimate acquaintance!” King interrupted. 

So Ali’s advice to his sons was cut short and one of 
the guards had to get out and follow the cart, in which 
were now two corpses, the prisoner, Ali and two sons, 
and Grim and Jeremy. Ramsden acted as driver, stick¬ 
ing his toes under the bullocks’ tails in the fashion of Hin¬ 
dustan and steering with a tail in each hand, making 
noises to the patient brutes pretty closely resembling the 
cry of an angry parrot. 

Ramsden could have passed for a hospital case with¬ 
out extra make-up. His late antagonist had used the los¬ 
ing desperado’s recipe, disfiguring where he could not 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


205 


break, in the vain hope of destroying the superior man's 
morale. With hair torn from his black beard—raw 
seams where the Hindu's fingernails had grouted—blood 
in his hair, and turban gone—torn raiment, and great 
bruises showing through the rents—Ramsden looked 
more like a wild man from the Hills than any sort of 
civilized being. And that was no ill circumstance in it¬ 
self, for it tended to prevent interference. 

The same solitary constable who had run when Grim, 
Jeremy and King dropped down into the street like high¬ 
waymen, came close to regain his own self-respect by bul¬ 
lying these night-farers. But King walked in front in 
yellow garb, with that red caste-mark on his forehead; 
one of the sons of Ali with a tulwar walked behind, mak¬ 
ing the keen steel whistle and announcing that three heads 
with three blows was his average score. Worst of all, 
Ramsden sat perched above the shaft-tail, looking capable 
and willing to pull any man to pieces—growling like a 
big bear. 

So the constable remarked it was a hot night, and Ha- 
bibullah called him a liar, saying no heat was like that of 
Tophet, where the enemies all went whom he beheaded, 
three at a time with three blows. 

“Ho! I scatter their brains for the birds!" he shout¬ 
ed, until even father Ali—richer than he had been—con¬ 
sidered it expedient to reprimand him. 

“Have I wasted rupees fifty on an empty boaster?" 
he demanded acidly through the rear embroidered cur¬ 
tains; and thenceforward Habibullah marched sedately, 
thumbing the tulwar instead of swinging it, reflecting on 
life’s little ironies no doubt. 

Inside the ox-cart Grim and Jeremy recovered pres- 


206 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


ently, not having once lost consciousness. The effect of 
the bronze man’s hypnotism had been like that of the drug 
curare, paralyzing the nerve centers yet leaving them 
free to feel and to think as acutely as ever. The hypnosis 
lasted several minutes after the man’s death. 

“Proving,” said Grim, “that we ourselves did it to us. 
All he did was to know how to make us do it.” 

But that did not help Jeremy. He was disconsolate. 
Shame ate his heart out that he, the deceiver of thou¬ 
sands, the ventriloquist, the conjurer, should have fallen 
captive of another’s bow and spear. 

“For it’s as much a trick as palming ’em!” he 
grumbled. “I swear it’s a trick! By crickey. I’ll learn 
it, and by God I’ll hypnotize the whole of India! You 
watch!” 

Grim lit an oil lamp that hung in a bracket from the 
roof and, more with the notion of quieting Jeremy than 
anything, began to introduce the prisoner to the corpse. 
It was no use pretending any longer to the prisoner that 
they were Indian members of a different Nine; he had 
heard them speaking English. 

But there was a chance that he knew no German, and 
an almost equally good one that superstition had eaten all 
his judgment long ago. Grim whispered a long while in 
German to Jeremy, who presently raised the battered 
corpse and propped it in the corner, where the feeble 
lamp-rays shone on the face and the open eyes. The jaw 
fell, and Grim, watching the prisoner’s face, settled back 
into his own dark corner satisfied. 

The corpse spoke! 

“I am dead!” it announced in Punjabi through broken 
teeth that had left their mark indelibly on Ramsden’s fist. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


207 


The prisoner gasped. Ali and his sons grew gray with 
fear. Their teeth chattered. Ali would have used the 
hilt of his long knife on the corpse to beat it into silence 
but for Grim’s restraining arm. The atmosphere was per¬ 
fect for any kind of illusion—stifling, electric, full of 
panic. 

“I am dead, but the silver cord is not yet cut,” said 
the corpse. 

Even Grim felt a shiver pass through him. He 
reached up and turned the light out lest the illusion fail, 
for the jaw had dropped unseemly and betrayed no inten¬ 
tion of closing again to frame the words that Jeremy put 
into it. Nevertheless, they had seen the blood and the 
broken teeth—enough to account for faults of pronun¬ 
ciation. 

“I see dimly—only dimly,” said the corpse. “Who 
sits against me?” 

Two of the sons of Ali, deathly frightened, named 
their names. The corpse went on with sharper accent: 

“Who else? I smell-” 

The word smell may have had significance unknown 
to Jeremy. It made the prisoner toe the line. He sat up 
straight and answered: 

“I sit in front of you. Why speak Punjabi? Talk in 
our tongue!” 

“I? I? Who is I?” the corpse demanded angrily. 

“Nanak.” 

“Ah! I had looked for Nanak. I was seeking Nanak 
when the Karma overtook me.* Nanak—listen!” 

“Speak the secret tongue!” said Nanak, trembling in 
his last effort to retain incredulity and self-control. 


*1. e. when he was killed by Ramsden. 




208 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Grim struck a match and blew it out. The moment’s 
flash lit up the dead face, making it seem to move—an 
accident—one of those accidents that do occur to men 
who strive persistently. All that Grim had intended was 
to guard against Nanak’s escape. 

“Nay. For I will not speak twice; and these must 
understand,” said the corpse. “Hear thou me, Nanak. 
These are they of an alien race whom the gods have sent 
to unmask the Nine Unknown. Obey them, Nanak. For 
the Nine Unknown are known to the gods, who have en¬ 
dured them long enough.” 

The prisoner had passed the point of incredulity and 
hesitated on the verge of full belief. 

“If thou speakest truth,” he said, “tell me, why art 
thou dead, and I living ?” 

A poser for the priests! But the answer was as 
prompt as the solution of any trick staged by Jeremy. 

“Karma* overtook me. The tale of thy years, Nanak, 
has a while to run. Thy willingness to shield a friend at 
thy cost has obtained thee a privilege. Obey these men, 
Nanak, that the gods may love and recompense thee!” 

The corpse ceased speaking. In the ensuing silence 
Nanak with a crackling throat sought to induce it to say 
more, wheedling, imploring, praying for answers to a 
score of doubts that tortured his bewildered mind. 

But if Jeremy knows one thing it is this: Never re¬ 
peat a miracle! If lightning never strikes the same tree 
twice, no conjurer need hope to mystify again the same 
audience in the same place with the selfsame trick. 

Grim struck another match and lit the lamp. The 

*It is an axiom that neither man nor any of the gods can 
prevent the fulfillment of the law of Karma. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


209 


corpse looked more dead than even Ali’s brother did, who 
lay face-downward with the thin, round end of a brass 
dart just protruding from the base of his shaved skull. 
The dead thing’s head lolled sidewise and rolled with 
each bump of the two-wheeled cart, amid a chorus of 
quick, low-breathed exclamations of: 

“Allah ! Lord of Mercies! Nay, there is no God but 
Allah! Allah! Allah!” 

Then came Chullunder Ghose, near-naked and beside 
himself, charging by King, not recognizing him, distract¬ 
ed, slippery with sweat. King’s fingers slipped off his 
arm and failed to bring him to a halt. He ran straight at 
the big oxen, that will gore a white man but permit the 
vegetarian Hindu almost any liberties. Setting a foot on 
the bow of the yoke between them he leaped along it and 
collapsed in Ramsden’s lap—a mound of hot flesh on a 
fellow every inch of whose anatomy was sore. 

“Oh terrible! Most awful happenings! Rammy 
sahib-” 

Ramsden, saying nothing, bundled him over the rump 
of the near ox to the street, where he lay for a minute 
calling on a pantheon of gods and devils. It was luck 
that preserved the wheel from passing over him. King 
turned back; Grim and Jeremy emerged; Chullunder 
Ghose was hauled clear of hoofs and wheels. Ali of Sik- 
underam suggested drastic remedies. 

“A Hindu thinks fire is a god.* Burn him then with 
matches! Let the god wring speech from him!” 

“Oh, terrible! Oh, awful happenings!” moaned the 
babu. 


*Agni—the principle of fire. 




210 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


They could not wait there in mid-street while Chul- 
lunder Ghose rambled of uncertainties. Nor was there 
room for the babu in the covered cart without removing 
guards or corpses. Corpses had it. One corpse at least. 

“Out with him! Into the shadow! In with the babu! 
That’s it—drive on, Rammy!” 

Noises that only oxen understand emerged from 
Jeffs aching throat, and with a tail in each hand again 
he sent the conveyance forward, only to bring it to a halt 
a moment later. 

Now another apparition raged up-street, as nearly 
naked as the babu had been—bearded, this one—swift— 
enormous—with a turban still in place and shaking what 
looked like a club in his right hand. 

“Sahibs!” 

“Quick, Narayan Singh! What’s happened?” 

He could hardly speak for gasping. There was spit¬ 
tle on his black beard—smoke, and its stinging red- 
rimmed traces in his eyes—a cut across his knuckles 
where he had guarded a blow—and a bloody, wet mess 
where a knife of some kind had passed between arm and 
ribs. 

“They got my pistol!” 

“Who? How? When? Where?” 

“They did! Now! From behind!” 

“Where, man? Where?” 

“Her house! Gauri’s!” 

“Where’s Cyprian?” 

“ Sahibs! Sahibs!” Narayan Singh was wilder-eyed 
than ever. The thing in his hand was no club, but a 
broken section of a bed-rail. He shook it like a clansman 
summoning the border-watch. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


211 


“They have burned the house!” 

“And Cyprian?” 

“My sons! My sons!” yelled Ali of Sikunderam. “I 
left four of them at Gauri’s!” 

He waited for no ceremony of permission—charged 
down-street with the remaining sons, waving his Khyber 
knife, beside Habibullah, bidding him make good his 
newly won fame as a smiter of three in three blows. And 
in the nick of time Jeremy pounced on the prisoner, who 
was seizing the obvious advantage; they fought under 
the wheels, rolling over and over, hardly noticed until 
Jeremy found breath to shout for help—a shout that 
saved Chullunder Ghose. 

For while the babu lay in something like hysterics, 
grateful for the darkness in the covered cart, three men 
in yellow crept from the rear and groped over the cart- 
tail, seizing Ali’s brother’s corpse by both the feet and 
dragging it out in such light as there was for inspection. 

“Dead! Nay, he is not the boaster!” said a voice in 
Punjabi. 

“Look!” said another. “They fight under the cart! 
Our guru is alive!” 

“Nay, we found the guru’s body! Those are others! 
Slay!” 

It was then that Jeremy shouted—then that King, 
Grim and Ramsden darted around the cart—then that one 
of the men in yellow answered: 

“Nay, I say I saw the boaster run!” 

So whether they fled from Grim and Jeremy, or 
whether Jeff’s appearance was too terrifying, or whether 
they dared all in lust for vengeance on the man who 
“slew three Kali-wallahs with three smites,” did not 


212 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


transpire. They fled, dodging the blows aimed left and 
right at them—dodging even the terrific swipe of Nara- 
yan Singh’s broken bed-rail—leaving behind neither ex¬ 
planation nor the corpse of the guru with the bronze face 
—although where they had cached that was another 
mystery. 

King tied the prisoner, Ramsden superintending. 
They roped him into the cart by arm and legs, while Grim 
kept watch and Chullunder Ghose gasped up his bad 
news, sentence about with the Sikh. 

“They killed the Gauri with a cord!” 

“Sahibs, they fired the house and-” 

“They seized me, and-” 

“Sahibs, I went for Cyprian, but they had him already. 
The bed was empty, and I broke it for a club to-” 

“Hell, you men!” said Ramsden. “Why not go to 
the house and see.” 





CHAPTER XIII 


"i FELT THE TINGLE OF THE MAGIC AND FELL 

unresisting” 


T HEY went. They saw. There was not a trace of 
Cyprian—only the Gauri’s house in flames and a 
belated fire-engine in charge of a weary man who said— 
“These women’s houses are a bad risk—jealousy, you 
know—carousal—anything may happen—lamp upset—■ 

arson maybe—you police-” 

But the policeman had his hands full and, being a 
white officer, in a land where they say the white man’s 
bolt is shot, sought excuses for not interfering too much. 
“Native prejudices, don’t you know.” 

There lay a man in mid-street, belly-downward, with 
a great wound in his back such as ten lives could have 
sped through—a northerner—Hillman by the look of him 
—perhaps Sikunderam. Quarrelsome lot, 
men. Probably he set the fire and die' 1 
213 








214 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


But what should a wretched policeman do, with the 
certainty that a Hindu lawyer would be hired by some¬ 
body to accuse him of stirring racial passions? He or¬ 
dered the corpse carried to the morgue, to await 
identification. 

Around a corner hardly a hundred yards away stood 
Ali of Sikunderam, most bitterly reviling fate between the 
bouts of explanation that he brandished, as it were, in the 
teeth of friends: 

“Sahibs, they slew him as a beast is slain—my Habi- 
bullah! They ran from behind and hit him with a butch¬ 
er's cleaver! What can I do? How can I claim the 
body? The police-" 

“But how—listen, Ali! How did they come to pick 
Habibullah ?’* 

“Sahibs —have I not said? The house was burning 
and no ishteamer* yet. And no police. One stood by the 
corner and asked me as I ran, ‘Who is the great one who 
can slay three men with three blows ?’ Who am I that I 
should swallow pride? I answered: ‘Lo! My son, my 
Habibullah! He slew three with three blows! Will you 
see him try the feat again ?’ said I. And with that the fel¬ 
low shouted, ‘Him first!' pointing. Whereat about a 
dozen men ran forth from a doorway, and one of them 
smote my son with the cleaver!" 

“What did you do?" asked Narayan Singh, standing 
in the shadow of the ox-cart for concealment’s sake; for 
he looked like a man who had come hot from fighting. 

“What could I do? Ishteamers came—two of them— 
and the police. May Allah blast the lives of the police! I 
ran—I and my two sons. What else ?" 


*lshteamer: Fire-engine. Anything that goes by steam. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


215 


“No sign of Father Cyprian ?” 

“None! Nor of my four sons!” answered Ali, run¬ 
ning the fingers of both hands through his gray-shot 
beard. “If my sons lie in the ashes yonder, burned by 
Hindus, may Allah so do to me and more likewise unless 
I burn half of Delhi to the ground! I will lay India 
waste! I will raise a lashkar* in the Hills and raid and 
rape this land until a Hindu won’t dare show himself! 
I-” 

“Hs-s-sh!” said King. “We can’t wait here. What 
next ?” 

“What next is where to hide ox-cart!” sighed Chul- 
lunder Ghose. “Characteristic of ox-carts being trac- 
ability! Requirements of this party, self included, being 
absence from the flesh at present! Even the police could 
trace us by the corpses—like a lot of bottles! Debauch of 
bloodshed! Self am drunk with blood—inebriated— 
very! I say office! That is advice of blood-drunk babu! 
Go to office. Subsequently I lose ox-cart in Chandni 
Chowk, being goat as usual!” 

“But the prisoner ?” 

“I said ‘subsequently,’ ” sighed Chullunder Ghose, op¬ 
pressed in spirit by the world’s obtuseness and its too ma¬ 
terial demands. “To the office with the prisoner; to hell 
with me. Your servant, sahibs! Vae metis! Caught 
with stolen ox-cart, trying to conceal same under garbage 
—no friends—no attorney—ten years— verb . sap .—are 
we going? Yes?” 

They went, but Ali and one son backed off, promising 
to turn up at the office by another route. Ramsden, with 
Jeremy to lend him aid and countenance, sought an Eura- 


*Army. 



216 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


sian apothecary, to whom Jeremy told fabulously interest¬ 
ing tales of dark intrigue while Ramsden was sluiced out, 
salved and bandaged —“a la queen’s taste,” as the man 
of drugs described it. Thereafter Jeremy and Ramsden 
chose a round-about route, using every trick in Jeremy’s 
compendium for throwing off pursuit—which brought 
them, subject to the quirks of Destiny, beneath the win¬ 
dow of a building, whence policemen issued—five—that 
minute freed from extra duty—arguing. 

“It was a hundred-rupee note!” said one of them. 

“Nay, fifty!” 

“I saw!” 

“I likewise!” 

“I say it was fifty!” 

“I saw you take it from his clothes. It was in a leath¬ 
er purse. You threw the purse away. It was a 
hundred!” 

“Fifty!” 

“Show us then!” 

They all stood in a group beneath a street light, and 
the man who had emerged first drew a fifty-rupee note 
from his pants pocket, carefully unfolded it, and held it 
in the pale rays. 

“Good that we were all dismissed together, or it would 
have been but ten by now!” said one of them, and they all 
laughed. 

“Who can change it? Ten for each of us!” 

They laughed again. Not one of them had change. 
Ramsden and Jeremy were within five paces when the 
laugh was cut short—turned into the blasphemy of spit¬ 
ting cats—and like the blast that whoops along the val¬ 
leys of his homeland Ali of Sikunderam with one son 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


217 


swept into the middle of the group, snatched the fifty- 
rupee note, spat in the face of the man who had held it, 
and vanished! 

“Hell!” exclaimed Ramsden. “Now we’re ‘it’!” 

He was right, or he would have been, but for Jeremy. 
Failing the right victim, pick the easiest and “shake him 
down!” 

The five policemen turned on two who might have 
money, and who looked easy to convict of almost any¬ 
thing. 

“Sahibs!” said Jeremy; and the very title flattered 
them. “'This is the servant of the Burra-wallah High 
Commissioner Dipty sahib. He and I recognized those 
rascals!” 

The police closed in around them. 

“This bandaged bear ? The Dipty -sahib’s butler may¬ 
be ? A fine tale!” 

“Aye! And an end to it, unless ye use discretion!” 

Jeremy fell back on dignity of the assumed kind— 
something that he lacks unless by way of mimicry. To a 
man those five police were Moslems. Jeremy was robed 
in the hated garb of a Hindu sect notorious as more fa¬ 
natical than even the most bigoted “True-believers.” But 
the police of most of the cities of the world have experi¬ 
enced the fruits of interference with entrenched ecclesias¬ 
tics. However lawless, they let them alone if they may, 
occasionally envying, no doubt, the opportunities for 
“honest increment” so hugely greater—so immensely 
safer than their own. 

This follower of Kali doubtless had his own way of 
exerting influence. It might be true that the “Dipty-sa- 
hib” kept a strong man in his pay for private reasons. If 


218 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


it were a lie, the man in bandages seemed none the less to 
be befriended by a member of a dangerous cult. 

“Dogs !” snarled Jeremy. “Will ye snoot among the 
garbage, or be laid on a true scent ?” 

He was giving them no option really. No policeman, 
not the most cantankerous Mahommedan, would dare re¬ 
fuse a clew from a religious personage. None might 
wear those orange-yellow robes except the recognized 
initiates of a dreaded mystery. That much was notorious. 
Surely no initiate would play a trick on the police. 

“You know where we may find those robbers ?” one 
asked with as much deference in his voice and manner as 
he found compatible with True-believing. 

“I know,” answered Jeremy. But he knew, no more 
than they, as he recounted afterward, the sheer, stark im¬ 
pudence of the trick he was going to play on them. He 
was simply “spieling,” as he called it—“talking to encour¬ 
age the ideas to come;” and whenever Jeremy does that 
the unexpected happens. 

“Show us, sahib” 

Jeremy’s whole facial expression changed. The idea 
had come to him, smiling from the blue. He wore now 
the look of rapt intensity with which he holds an audience, 
while his subtle fingers achieve impossibilities of leger¬ 
demain. That look of itself alone would have been suf¬ 
ficient, but for Ramsden; he had to explain away Rams- 
den satisfactorily, or else to extricate him brazenly, and 
the difficulty only added to the zest. 

“You know our house ?” he asked, selecting his words 
to avoid a compromising wrong phrase. (He did not 
even know at that time whether or not the followers of 
Kali had a temple, or even a meeting-place in Delhi.) 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


219 


“The temple of Kali ? Surely/’ said one of the police. 

“Well—go to that, and-” 

They looked disappointed, and the air of deference 
waned visibly, as Jeremy noticed; but they did not know 
he noticed it. 

“Nay, better; I go with you. Lead on. We will fol¬ 
low to attract less notice.” 

The police agreed to go four in front, provided one of 
them might follow behind for “discretionary purposes.” 

They were not capable of quite trusting a Hindu 
stranger in the circumstances, any more than Jeremy was 
really sure they could guide him to the enemy’s head¬ 
quarters. B’ut the police know scores of things of which 
they do not comprehend the significance. They led 
Jeremy and Ramsden to the very door of a temple, on 
whose front the image of the Dreadful Bride of Siva 
scowled through her regalia of snakes and skulls. 

It was a battered image. Moslem rule and riot each 
had taken toll of it. The nose was missing. Not a snake 
or skull of all her ornaments was whole. The dirt of a 
generation and the tireless energy of time had joined 
their forces, so that Kali’s face was ground like that of 
the poor—into unrecognition; part of the disguise, that, 
like the necklaces and snakes. None cared. None visited 
that temple to ask unpleasant questions. Though the 
purlieus of the door were clean enough to appease the 
municipal inspectors, the gloom within was unattractive. 
He who lurked in a yellow smock in the shadows beyond 
the threshold was no showman, but a guardian of sacred 
privacy, whose very glance was a rebuff. 

“Do ye dare enter?” Jeremy asked of the about-to-be- 
confused police. 


220 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


They naturally did not dare. It dawned on them that 
they were fooled, and helpless. 

“You should look for your Hillmen in a coffee-shop, 
three streets to your right and straight along for half a, 
mile/’ he told them, smiling. 

So they smiled back, dejectedly, as victims of a prac¬ 
tical joke who do not care to admit they are annoyed. 
They saw him thrust Ramsden toward the inner temple 
gloom, and turned away with a grim jest about Hindus 
and holy places that would have done credit to the Proph¬ 
et of Allah himself. 

“Let’s sit,” suggested Jeremy. 

Ramsden sat down, almost on the threshold, almost 
absolutely invisible in the deep night that precedes dawn; 
and Jeremy beside him, next the street. 

“We’ll give them time to lose sight of us, and then 
hoof it,” said Jeremy. “Meanwhile, we know now where 
the yellow-jackets’ nest is. If a yellow-belly sees us he’ll 
mistake me for a member of the gang.” 

“Not so!” said a voice in the dark within a yard of 
him, in English. 

He looked into the eyes of death—of Kali!—of the 
Goddess of Annihilation!—into the eyes of Siva’s awful 
Bride! Her arm reached out toward him from the dark¬ 
ness. Living snakes, encircling her hair like tresses of 
Medusa, writhed as in torment. Skulls that might have 
been of monkeys or of men—that was no telling in that 
light—rattled like dry gourds on a rope about her shoul¬ 
ders. There was a faint smell, not of a charnel-house, but 
of herbs that suggested prophylaxis, and by inference the 
reason for it—blood! 

“Catch hold of me!” gasped Ramsden, reaching for 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


221 


Jeremy’s hand. But he was fixing his attention else¬ 
where. 

The goddess was young, as with a youth eternal. Full 
lips, cheeks, breasts—burning eyes aflow with something 
else than greed—a plump arm, shapely as a serpent— 
grace of movement—snakes—and dry skulls! 

And the smell—the word “smell,” Jeremy remem¬ 
bered, had brought that yellow-robed prisoner to his 
senses—the penetrating, subtle smell of herbs did more 
than offset things. It banished them! They faded out. 

Ramsden had lost consciousness, huge and heavy, with 
his shoulders across Jeremy’s thighs, until some one took 
him by both feet and drew him into the temple. Jeremy 
felt himself going. The gloom swam—full of Kali’s 
glowing eyes—she seemed to have scores of them that 
everlastingly reduced themselves to two. 

“I felt the tingle of the magic and fell unresisting!” 

He remembered Ali’s boast. He let himself go—lay 
back in the arms of some one whom he could not see— 
Kali’s arms and her snakes for aught he knew!—and let 
them drag him unresisting head-first into the darkness 
that was cool and echoing and dry. 

So he was conscious when they slammed a door on 
him. Nor would he have been Jeremy if he had lain still, 
uninquisitive. He set to work to grope about a great 
room, stumbling over Ramsden’s inert bulk, until his 
hand rested on a truckle-bed and his ears heard breath¬ 
ing. He produced matches from the belt in which he kept 
cigarettes and money under his smock—struck one—saw 
a face he knew, and burned his fingers while he stared at 
it. 


“By God! Pop Cyprian!” 



CHAPTER XIV 
"we've got your chief!" 

UO AMMY, old top!" 

Jeff Ramsden had moved, and Jeremy's voice 
in the womb of blackness greeted his return to conscious¬ 
ness. But he had to repeat the words several times before 
there was any answer; Jeff had forgotten where he left 
off, and lay cautious like the centipede "considering how 
to run." 

"Listen, it's me, Jeremy. We're under Kali’s temple, 
and Pop Cyprian’s here sleeping like a baby on a full 
meal. I’ve struck matches—seven left—can’t find lamp 
or candle. I’ll strike one more, and keep the last six for 
emergency. Wake up!" 

It dawned on Jeff that Jeremy did not consider this 
was an emergency. He laughed. 

"Good enough!’’ said Jeremy. "Don’t stare at the 
match. It’s the last, remember." 

222 








THE NINE UNKNOWN 


223 


There are those who don't believe in miracles, but ac¬ 
cept the turning on of light as commonplace. Moreover, 
they may vote, and some are known as educators. 

This happened: where nothing was, and no light, sud¬ 
denly a vaulted crypt developed, glowing with the color 
of warm gold wherever rays from a mean, imported Jap¬ 
anese match shone on a projection. Agni, leaping from 
the womb of wood, had wrought another wonder, that 
was all. (The age of miracles is done.) 

Between two shadows of carved pillars lay Cyprian 
face-upward, like a corpse laid out for burial, but breath¬ 
ing rhythmically, smiling like a man who sees beyond the 
veil and is agreeably surprised. He lay on army blank¬ 
ets on a bed that could be carried easily, and was covered 
up to the armpits with a white sheet. The shadows all 
around him leaped like things alive. Arches appeared 
and vanished. Jeff tried to guess the height of the vault¬ 
ed roof above him. 

“Blast!” remarked Jeremy. “That’s the fifth time! 
My fingers are cooked through.” 

Light vanished, but the momentary picture left its im¬ 
pression on the retina. For seconds, though his eyes 
were shut, Jeff saw the golden masonry, and Cyprian in 
an aura that the shadows were closing in like floods to 
overwhelm. 

“I’ve tried to wake him,” said Jeremy. “I’ve pinched 
him. He don’t move. But his respiration, temperature 
and pulse all seem about normal. Do you suppose he’s 
hypnotized ?” 

“I know I’ve been poisoned,” Jeff answered. “You’ll 
have to pardon my bad French.” 

He vomited enormously; but even so, with that neces- 


224 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


sity off his mind, he could not remember what had 
happened. 

“You were knocked over by a smell / 5 said Jeremy. 
“It didn’t get me.” 

That was swank unshriven—Jeremy, not long ago a 
victim of the hypnotist whom Ramsden slew, reasserting 
his equality. Subsequently, from beneath, as memory al¬ 
ways works, the salient points of recent history emerged 
into Jeff’s consciousness, developed by the acid under¬ 
standing that Jeremy had some need to assert himself. 

“Wasn’t I in a fight?” asked Jeff. 

“No, old top. The other Johnny was. You won. 
Listen: King, Grim and the rest of ’em are prob’ly in our 
office in the Chandni Chowk, waiting for us. We’re 
under the floor, and maybe under the cellar of Kali’s tem¬ 
ple. A lady runs the place whose hair needs combing— 
no, not cooties—snakes! She wears men’s skulls for or¬ 
naments. Vamped ’em possibly. Our crowd hold one 
yellow-belly prisoner, and what with Narayan Singh and 
you we’ve killed a bag-full. Contrariwise, they’ve got us. 
My guess is we’re safe enough as long as our crowd is 
alive and alert. But if they should burn half of Delhi in 
order to roast our folks alive, why then-” 

“Why then you would be spoorlos* wouldn’t you!” 
said a voice in the dark, that was a man’s, but for all the 
money in the world not Cyprian’s. 

Jeremy accepted that as an emergency and struck 
match one of the remaining six. A breath blew it out 
before it finished sputtering. He struck another, shelter¬ 
ing it between his hands. Eyes laughed at him, but a 
breath blew the match out before he could see the face 


*Without a trace. 




THE NINE UNKNOWN 


225 


that framed them. Nevertheless, he was nearly sure that 
breath and eyes belonged to different individuals. He 
struck a third match and Jeff prospected in his own way. 
Jeffs fist, launched not quite at random in the dark, hit 
some one hard and sent whoever it might be crashing 
backward against Cyprian’s cot, upsetting man and cot 
together—waking Cyprian. 

“Mercy, where am I? Light! Turn on the light!” 
said the old priest querulously. Memory failed him, too. 

But a voice spoke like the resonances of a bronze bell, 
in a tongue that neither Jeremy nor Ramsden knew, and 
slowly—almost like aurora borealis—soft light begin¬ 
ning dimly in a dozen places filled the crypt. It 
Seemed to commence among corners and slowly to col¬ 
lect itself into a whole, until at last it framed nine indi¬ 
viduals, the chief of whom in the center out-frowned all 
the others as a mountain dwarfs the hills. He was mo¬ 
tionless, immense, a man who had attained the stark sim¬ 
plicity of elemental knowledge and a kind of power that 
goes with it. Except for one thing he could have passed 
for a Mahatma—one of those pure embodiments of spirit¬ 
uality, who set the whole world first and themselves last, 
thus conquering the world. In his eyes there glared the 
cold fire of ambition. He was proud with the pride of 
Lucifer, who fell. Pride is the first of all foes that the 
Mahatma vanquishes, and so this individual’s attainment, 
if prodigious, none-the-less was not good. 

Compared to the man whom Jeff fought in the yard 
of the minaret he was as two to one. Even his physical 
strength seemed twice that of the former. In poise, calm, 
majesty of brow, and magnetism he more resembled one 
of those temple images that sit in the gloom and stare 


226 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


through eyes of amethyst, than any ordinary being. He 
looked aloof from human standards; yet—the hunger for 
human power burned in him, and could be felt. 

His coppery skin shone, well groomed, although 
hardly clothed at all, and his muscles were like bronze 
castings. His smile was thick-lipped, but as static as the 
rest of him, as if it had been cast in place. On his fore¬ 
head, under an orange-yellow turban, was the crimson 
caste-mark of the cruel goddess whom he chose to serve, 
but he wore no other ornament, nor any clothes except the 
yellow cloth twisted scantly on his loins. His feet were 
bare, and he sat with their soles turned upward in the 
attitude impossible, or at best a torture, to the western 
races. 

“Bong!” 

The word, if it was one, sounded like a hammer on 
bell-metal, producing overtones that hummed away into 
infinity. The eight who were with him hurried like su¬ 
pers betrayed by a rising curtain to straighten themselves 
into rigid attitudes on either hand—all except one, the 
woman. Jeremy knew her again, although the snakes 
and skulls were missing. Alone of all of them she sat 
irregular—apart from the exact arc of a circle that the 
others kept—like a picture of Herodias, lacking John 
Baptist’s head just yet a while. Lovely, if you love that 
kind of thing. Rich, ripe, full-lipped, with eyes of a chal¬ 
lenging candor that had looked with curiosity and some 
amusement—but no pity—into more and worse evil than 
the rest of the world suspects there is. Sex-insolence 
robed in a leopard-skin. 

She had jewels on most of her fingers, and on one toe 
what looked like a wedding-ring set with diamonds; but 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


227 


her nostril had not been pierced for the jeweled stud so 
much affected by Hindu women, and her earrings were 
not the usual drooping things but emeralds cut table- 
shape and set so that even the claws of the setting were 
invisible. 

The others were seven men in yellow smocks, not re¬ 
markably different from those who had conducted the 
offensive hitherto, but possibly a mite more sure of them¬ 
selves and a shade less anxious, consequently, to create 
impressions. Seven men so much alike in motive and 
self-discipline that a kind of graceless unity had settled 
on them, making of men of varying height and weight 
one pattern molded by unanimous desire. 

“Who are these people ? Where am I ?” Cyprian de¬ 
manded, sitting up. 

Instead of answering, the bronze man in the midst 
pointed a finger at Jeremy and spoke in English: “You 
and he, pick up that bed and set it down between you!” 

By “he” he meant Ramsden. By giving a command 
that would probably not be disobeyed he intended to im¬ 
pose his will. The most imperial control must have be¬ 
ginning, and the hypnotist does not live—nor ever did— 
who can exert authority without by some means gaining 
first the victim’s own consent. 

Jeremy was done with being hypnotized. 

“You go to hell!” he answered civilly in English. 

“Ditto!” 

Ramsden reenforced him with a gruff voice and a ges¬ 
ture like a gladiator’s. He feared poison-gas much more 
than any mental trickery. 

“Come over here. Pop!” Jeremy said to Cyprian. 
“Try to walk.” 


228 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Cyprian made the attempt, getting his feet to the 
floor and then thrusting himself up with both hands. He 
did not do badly. Jeff caught him before he tripped and 
fell, and set him down like a child between himself and 
Jeremy, where the old man, leaning against Jeff’s shoul¬ 
der, shut his eyes after one hard look at the nine who 
faced him. He was conscious, for his lips were moving. 
He might have been memorizing a formula. 

“Can you do this?” said Jeremy, smiling impudently 
into the face of the enemy’s spokesman. 

He avoided the woman’s eyes. She had a long silk 
handkerchief that she plied between her fingers restlessly. 
He snatched it without looking at her, and went through 
the motions of the Thug-assassin, tossing the handker¬ 
chief at last into the lap of the immense man in the midst. 
It was the essence of disrespect—irreverence. 

“Beat that if you can!” 

The woman giggled. He who should have been re¬ 
spected spoke in an unknown language. 

“Bong!” or so it sounded, and about eight other syl¬ 
lables. It was as startling as the gong that checks ten 
thousand horsepower in mid-turn. 

Four of the nine got up and passed behind the pillars 
to their rear, returning in a minute with a wooden stretch¬ 
er and a great weight on it. The woman giggled again. 

“Look!” said the man in the midst, again in English. 

But Jeremy had looked. His cue was disobedience. 
It did not interest him to con again the features of the 
man whom Jeff had fought and killed—whom he had 
made to sit up and seem to speak in the ox-cart. 

“I get you!” he answered, laughing. “Who killed 
Cock-Robin? That it? Want to bet? I’ll bet the man 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


229 


who took his number down can do the same to you! 
Come! Put your money up!” 

Disobedience increasing into disrespect, was rising to 
Jeremy's head like wine. His voice and the little curt 
laugh betrayed it. Cyprian's old, lashless eyes opened a 
trifle—hardly wider than walnuts at a winter's end—and 
his lips ceased moving. When he spoke at last he had 
pulled himself together and there was the strength in his 
voice that is the accumulation of half a century’s con¬ 
ceded deference. He spoke as one having authority: 

“Peace in the presence of death !” 

“I'm not joking, Pop,” said Jeremy; but the fumes 
were no longer rising. “Rammy can lick that blighter!” 

“Peace!” commanded Cyprian. 

He was still leaning against Ramsden's shoulder. 
Jeff's right arm was around his waist as if it had been a 
girl’s. Depending on Jeff's grip the old man leaned for¬ 
ward—raised one finger—pointed at the bronze face op¬ 
posite—opened his eyes wide at last. He seemed to be 
drawing deep on his reserves of strength. 

“Peace! Do you hear me!” He was speaking Eng¬ 
lish just as Jeremy had done. “As long as we are unac¬ 
counted for-” 

It was the bronze man’s turn to laugh. He and the 
woman rang a carillon like bells in tune. The other seven 
smiled, as if the abyss in which their thoughts dwelt 
swallowed any sound they might have made. 

“My brother!” said the bronze man simply, making a 
gesture toward the bier. The two words explained the 
whole of his attitude, although the word did not neces¬ 
sarily imply blood-relationship. 

“Watch out you don’t join him in Hell!” sneered 



230 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Jeremy, bridling, repeating his curt, dry laugh—the 
danger signal. 

So Cyprian reentered the lists, raising his head off 
Ramsden’s shoulder. 

“You do not dare!” he said, pointing a lean forefinger. 
And again he spoke English. “You have no occult pow¬ 
er ! You can harm no men who are awake. You are a 
weak thing—a poor thing—helpless—human flesh and 
blood! You are as helpless in the face of honesty as 

that r 

He pointed at the corpse. Wise, wise old Cyprian! 
Nine out of any ten religionists would have voiced some 
tenet of their creed, and so have given the enemy an open¬ 
ing into which to thrust the barbed darts of religious 
rivalry. 

“You will never get my library,” he went on. “Trus¬ 
tees have orders what to-do with it. And if you harm me, 
can you pick the knowledge from my old dead brains ?” 

The woman laughed aloud. The man in bronze 
smiled triumphantly. Jeff Ramsden’s arm closed around 
Cyprian, and Jeremy leaned forward, as if to interpose 
his own body between the old man and the shock that was 
trembling on cruel lips to be launched. News of the 
burning of his books was likelier than not to unhinge Cy¬ 
prian. It was a bomb reserved to batter his defenses. 
Jeff forestalled it—drew the fuse. 

“Your books are up in smoke,” he said. “Rather than 
let them carry even one away we-” 

No need to finish the friendly lie. Cyprian under¬ 
stood that friends had been forehanded with the torch. 

“All?” he demanded. 

“Every last one,” said Jeff. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


231 


“You know that?” 

“Yes.” 

Cyprian stiffened himself, almost as if ten years were 
taken off his age. 

“I am content. I have deserved it. It was pride that 
prevented me from burning them long ago. You are cer¬ 
tain they are all gone?” 

Then the old man bowed his head, and the enemy un¬ 
derstood there was no more chance in that direction. 
There is little you can do in that way with a man who 
owns nothing and asks no more favors of the world. But 
you may threaten. He tried that next: 

“At your age death without water-” 

“Is easier than for you!” said Cyprian. 

“At the mercy of ants-” 

“God’s creatures!” answered Cyprian. “I am old. I 
can face my end.” 

Or you may tempt—perhaps. 

“We know much. You know a little. Add yours to 
ours, and we can track the Nine down.” 

Cyprian bent his head again, this time to hide a smile; 
but the woman saw it. She made some kind of signal to 
the man. Cyprian was elated. The double confession 
couched in ten words, that these, too, were hunting the 
Nine and did not even know their whereabouts, was like 
a breath of incense. 

The man with the bronze smile read the woman’s sig¬ 
nal and appeared to be digesting it. He said nothing for 
about a minute. Then: 

“We have a man who knows a member of the Nine 
by sight.” 

Jeff and Jeremy looked up, and down again, not dar- 




232 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


ing to complete the exchange of glances. Even so, it was 
enough. The nine who watched all recognized the move¬ 
ment and interpreted it. The woman held her hands 
palm-downward about midway from her bosom to the 
floor and moved them outward in a motion that suggest¬ 
ed leveling the earth for new erections. 

“Your friends hold him prisoner !” 

“You deduce that?” Cyprian asked, looking up with a 
swift bird-movement of the head. 

Ignorant himself of whether it was true or not, he 
was afraid that Jeff or Jeremy might blurt out an admis¬ 
sion. He knew better than to give away one scrap of 
information. Tell the enemy nothing. Concede nothing. 
Yield nothing. That was next to being his religion. 
That was why he bought up books on occultism and the 
secret sciences. It was part and parcel of him. 

Jeff detected Cyprian’s call for discretion sooner than 
Jeremy did. His slower wit was working at full power, 
plugging as it were against obscurity; whereas Jeremy, 
knowing himself the quicker, was leaping from one pos¬ 
sibility to another. Jeremy, if left to it, would have tried 
to strike a bargain, leaving mother-wit to solve it when 
the time for double-crossing came. Jeff would have used 
force. What his mind was pondering, deliberately rather 
than obtusely, was: Why had he not been searched ? The 
comfortable weights disposed beneath the ragged cos¬ 
tume he was wearing were enough proof of the fact. Did 
these men, knowing not a shot had been fired in the long 
night’s hurly-burly, simply deduce from that a lack of 
firearms? Were they so careless? 

Jeff doubted it. There was another reason. Figuring 
the probabilities he guessed that only two or three had 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


233 


captured him and Jeremy with the aid of gas, and had 
been glad enough to get them under lock and key until 
the others came. But they would hardly dare use gas 
again with their own unprotected persons in the crypt. 
Not very swiftly, but as surely as he sets his feet when 
walking, Jeff reviewed the argument, and then, as if the 
wound beneath a bandage hurt him, shifted his position. 

Jeremy was on another track. He wanted to know 
what they knew, unlike Jeff, who did not care and only 
wanted to be out of it. A jest died still-born on Jeremy's 
lips. It would have suited his sense of fitness to make 
that dead man speak again, and Cyprian, aware of indis¬ 
cretion in the air, shook nervously. 

But he with the bronze smile realized that nothing he 
had said or done had brought the prisoners nearer to the 
right subjective state in which he could impose his will on 
them. And he lost patience. Time seemed to be an ele¬ 
ment in his immediate affairs, and the woman kept mak¬ 
ing signals that impressed the others, if not him. Sud¬ 
denly he moved—about six inches—leaning forward and 
thrusting his hands in front of him as if they were ser¬ 
pents’ heads. 

“You — three — may — not — live — longer —than 

— you — can — endure —■ Her — agonies — unless—you 

— choose — to — be — of — use!” he said. 

Each word was separate—almost as if etched—spoken 
in English with an accent learned at one or other of the 
universities. And at the word “Her” his eyes met the 
woman’s, as if she were the expert in applied torment. 

“The younger shall be hurt first. The older shall 
look on,” he said as if it were an afterthought. 

“How be of use?” asked Jeremy. 


234 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Like this!” said Jeff; and he was on his feet before 
the words had shaped themselves. 

He could be quick when thought’s slow processes had 
ground out a conclusion. Loosing hold of Cyprian he 
leaped at the woman and had thrown her into Jeremy’s 
lap before Cyprian’s shoulders hit the floor. 

“Hang on to her!” he yelled. 

And then, with every sinew aching from the former 
fight, he launched himself straight at the man in the mid¬ 
dle, landing on his neck before a man could move to his 
assistance. One tenth of a second then would have been 
plenty for the whole of Jeff’s plan to go up in smoke like 
Cyprian’s library, but he was squandering no tenths. 
With a hand on the back of the neck of his enemy he 
hurled him forehead-forward to the stone floor—stunned 
him. And as the seven sprang to assist their chief Jeff 
dragged him out from under them, cuffing two into un¬ 
consciousness and knocking another into the discard 
somewhere behind the pillars. Then at last he drew his 
automatic pistol, and throwing his back against a pillar 
stood at bay, with a foot on the bronze man’s stomach and 
the pistol muzzle threatening him. 

“Are you heeled?” he called to Jeremy. 

But Jeremy had his hands too full for any such issue 
as a gun. He had the daughter of the Ohms to wrestle 
with. A trapped leopard with the smell of the forest in 
her lungs would have been a toy compared to her. No 
python ever wrapped and unwrapped coiling energy so 
fast, nor struck so swiftly. She was strength and hate 
and savagery all compressed into the heart of charged 
springs, and a knife in each hand made her no whit easier 
to overcome. What was worse, Jeff had only knocked 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


235 


out three of the seven. Four were on their feet and 
fancy-free—it might be they were doubly dangerous for 
lack of the control the man in their midst had exercised 
before Jeff laid him out. 

Jeremy with his knee in the woman’s stomach twisted 
one wrist until she dropped that knife with a scream of 
anger. But her right wrist was stronger than his left, 
and her stomach muscles could resist his knee. She 
slipped out from under him and kicked the fallen knife. 
One of the seven pounced on it, and Jeff shot him dead 
before he could raise his hand to drive the blade into 
Jeremy. 

But that was not Jeffs plan. Noise, that might bring 
help was likelier to bring more enemies. Gas was what 
he feared. As long as there were living followers of Kali 
in the crypt it was hardly likely their friends would turn 
the gas on. He wished the giant under his foot would 
show signs of life. If Jeremy should kill the woman and 
he should shoot all the others there would probably be a 
greater risk of gas than ever. 

But Destiny was overturning. They were down in¬ 
side the works. Like a pair of interwoven springs re¬ 
leased Jeremy and the woman fought in spasms, she using 
teeth and he his fists at last—for how else should a man 
release his biceps from unyielding jaws? The underlings 
in yellow lurked behind pillars for their opportunity, as 
likely as not possessed of firearms and afraid to use them 
yet lest Jeff should finish off their chief. The woman, 
for a second mastering Jeremy, writhed close to a pillar. 
Jeff decided he must shoot her—just as two men moved 
—the man under his foot and Cyprian. Both moved at 
once—spoke—used the same word— 


236 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Cease!” 

Then: “Don’t shoot again. Put up your weapon,” 
ordered Cyprian. 

He under Jeff’s foot shouted something at the woman 
in a tongue that not even Cyprian understood, and she, 
with a last dynamic dig with her knife at Jeremy’s right 
eye, laughed and relaxed, so that Jeremy scattered his 
strength and she slipped away from him before he could 
recover. She had the knife poised for throwing, with the 
haft against the heel of her hand and her elbow well back, 
when Jeff coughed and her eye looked down the barrel of 
his automatic. Jeremy laughed and took the knife and 
thanked her for it, in return for which she spat so nearly 
straight into his mouth that he could neither eat nor drink 
for days without remembering it. 

And all that while the light—the pale, cool, unex¬ 
plained light that had started in a dozen places and ap¬ 
peared to join itself together into one—had continued 
steadily, casting no shadow in their midst but leaving all 
the outer portions of the crypt in darkness. 

It began to grow dim; not at once, but gradually, as 
it once came, resolving into separate mysteries, each with¬ 
drawing, and each growing less. Jeremy went for the 
woman again, but she laughed, escaping his clutches 
easily, mocking him and as the light waned focussing her 
thought on Cyprian. It was as obvious as the increasing 
dimness that when darkness came Cyprian was due for 
her attentions. 

So Jeff Ramsden, feeling that his plan was no good 
after all—but game until the gods should hoist his num¬ 
ber—bent his knee rather than his shoulders and seized 
the man beneath him by the wrist. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


237 


“Come close, you two! Quick!” 

Cyprian and Jeremy obeyed him, in a twilight so dim 
now that the pillars of the crypt resembled tree-trunks in 
a forest, and the shadows moving in among them, ghosts. 

“Tie this man, Jeremy!” 

So Jeremy took the girdle from Cyprian’s black sou¬ 
tane and kneeling on the bronze man lashed his wrists 
behind him so that nothing less than sharp steel might set 
them free again. 

“Let me go. I’m going to turn you out of here,” the 
man protested. 

“I know you are!” Jeff answered. 

As he spoke, in front of him, somewhere among the 
deepening pillar-shadows, an arm moved swiftly and a 
knife struck the pillar behind him half an inch above his 
head. The woman’s laugh rang ghostly like a pixie’s in 
the forest, but the broken blade fell on Jeff’s trussed pris¬ 
oner and buried itself in the flesh of his arm. He cursed, 
and the woman left off laughing. Jeff took aim at where 
her laugh had seemed to have its origin, and fired. The 
pistol-flash, like lightning in the night, showed nothing 
but the pillars—and a gloom beyond—and no less than a 
dozen faces over yellow smocks, all waiting in the outer 
dark for something to begin. 

“I’ve four shots left and no spares. Where’s yours ?” 
Jeff asked Jeremy. 

There was no answer, but the sound of a struggle— 
strangling it might be—then of heavy breathing through 
the nose—and— 

“Bong!” 

It was the same word in an unknown tongue that had 
produced obedience before. But it was not the same man 


238 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


using it. It may be that a man with all his wits about 
him and no other care to subdivide attention might have 
detected mispronunciation. But there was much to think 
of. Expectation held its breath. It was pitch-dark now. 

Jeremy, feeling for Jeffs hand, guided it to the pris¬ 
oner’s mouth, not speaking. Jeff felt a gag made of a 
turban end, and understood; his two immense hands 
closed on the victim’s jaws, and the gag was tightened 
into place and held there by a pistol-butt. Nevertheless, 
the voice of the bronze man once more broke the silence— 
speaking English with an accent learned at one or other 
of the universities—each word separate. 

“Good. You—have—won—this—bout. It—is—con¬ 
ceded. Go—free. Your—three—lives—in—exchange— 
for—mine. My — men — will — show — you — to — the 
—street—in—safety. Go—free.” 

Then Jeremy’s voice—this time indubitably Jeremy’s: 

“All right, cocky! You come with us to the street as 
guarantee of good faith ! And I want to understand each 
word you say. Feel the knife on your Adam’s apple? 
It’ll cut in halves the first word you use in any other than 
the English language! Now—give your orders!” 

The voice changed to bell-metal. 

“Lead them to the street and let them go. Let no 
harm touch them.” 

Jeremy’s voice again, high-pitched and disrespectful, 
taking no man nor his makings seriously: 

“We’ve ten shots and a knife to keep our end up with. 
We’ll croak you at the first hitch!” 

Bell-metal again: 

“Make haste! The day increases. Lead them to the 
street.” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


239 


“In darkness !” ordered Jeremy. “No light to see to 
shoot us by!” 

“In darkness!” said the bell obediently. 

There was movement somewhere—almost inaudible 
footfalls. Then a voice at a little distance, speaking in 
Punjabi— 

“This way—come!” 

Jeremy gathered up Cyprian, who leaned back in the 
hollow of his arm reserving all strength for emergency. 
Jeff, holding the gag firmly with the pistol-butt, seized 
the prisoner’s neck in fingers like a vise and put such 
pressure on the jugular and carotid as answered all ob¬ 
jections in advance. Together, in an eight-legged group 
like a spider treading warily, they started for the voice, 
each touching each—Jeff’s strength as taut and alert as 
dynamite with fuse attached. 

“All is well. Keep coming!” said the same voice. 

“All ’ud better be well!” remarked Jeremy. “We’ve 
got your chief. He gets it first remember!” 

Whoever controlled that mysterious light obeyed the 
order to keep it turned off. That made discovery impos¬ 
sible, but eased no nerves. A dozen times the giant whom 
Jeff was dragging writhed in a sudden effort to eject the 
gag, and many more than a dozen times between the mid¬ 
dle of the crypt and a door set somewhere in its invisible 
circumference they drew in breath believing they were 
attacked. 

“This way, sahibs!” the voice kept calling, too sugar- 
sweetly to be free from guile; and they kept following, 
too fearful to refuse. Time and again they cannoned into 
pillars, as if whoever led them was boxing the compass 
in a calculated effort to confuse. 


240 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“The door in less than ten steps, or I shoot!” said 
Jeremy at last. 

The click of the slide of his automatic as he tested it 
confirmed the threat. But they were at the door. He 
tripped over a step that instant. And if Jeff had not 
needed his pistol-butt for forcing home the gag there 
would have been an all-betraying flash—and only In¬ 
dia’s gods know what next. Jeff used his fist instead— 
letting go his prisoner, swinging with all his weight be¬ 
hind a left-hand hay-maker, and hitting he never knew 
what. It vanished along with what might have been a 
feminine scream cut short. When he swung again there 
was nothing there. 

“Come on!” said Jeremy, and: 

“This way, sahibs!” said the voice. 

They mounted invisible steps and came to a ramp 
sloping upward between stone walls. It seemed to curve 
around the circumference of three parts of a circle, and 
they took each step with shoulders against the wail, pros¬ 
pecting carefully, with a foot in advance for fear of traps. 
Once, when they had mounted for as many minutes as was 
possible without giving vent to emotion, Jeremy stopped 
in the lead and forced himself to breathe steadily a dozen 
times. Then, obtaining self-command: 

“Remember! No lights!” he called out in the bell- 
metal voice. 

“No lights! This way, sahibs!” came the answer. 

Once or twice bats struck them in the face, but there 
was no other opposition until a great door creaked on 
heavy hinges and a darkness something less opaque an¬ 
nounced that they were in the temple. It was still impos¬ 
sible to see a hand outstretched a yard before the eyes; 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


241 


but there was another quality to darkness, and the echo 
changed. The door to the street was shut. They knew 
it must be daylight, but there was nothing to prove it— 
not a crack that the faintest ray shone through. 

But there was noise. Something—a man by his 
breathing—labored at a bolt, or it might be at a swinging 
bar that held the outer door shut. He muttered at his 
work. 

“Krishna!” was perfectly distinct—not a word you 
would expect in Kali’s temple, she having little in common 
with the god compassionate. 

There was the sound of hoofs—in itself no startling 
circumstance, for they let the sacred bulls pass freely in 
and out of many Hindu temples. But the squeak of un¬ 
oiled wheels was added to it; and if that meant anything 
it was that the dust of unclean streets had defiled a sacred 
floor. Dust on a bull’s feet is one thing; on wheels 
another. 

He who had led the way out of the crypt drew breath 
between his teeth and called to his chief in the secret 
tongue for orders. Jeff set his back against the heavy 
door to hold it open, Cyprian whispered something neith¬ 
er heard, and Jeremy took chances at a venture. He 
answered in Punjabi, in the bronze voice: 

“I will see these to the street. Return, thou, and call 
the others to attend to this when these have gone!” 

That certainly was vague enough. But it covered as 
much of the facts as anybody knew, and there was no 
need to explain why the chief did not answer in the sacred 
tongue. How should he dare be misunderstood by the 
men who held him as their hostage ? 

The guide seemed disciplined until his own will was an 


242 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


automatic agent of obedience. He turned with a rutch- 
ing of bare feet on stone and started back. Invisible, he 
sought the invisible door unerringly, and Jeff—invisible 
as either, and as ignorant of what might happen next as 
any one on earth—played by ear, as a musician might, for 
the peak of the man's jaw as he passed. He hit it, which 
was a miracle. He sent him stunned down the dark 
ramp, spinning on his heels and falling backward; and 
the heavy door shut tight on him before the echo of the 
blow had ceased. 

“My aunt!" said a voice in English. “Now is winter 
of a babu’s discontent! O temporal O mores!” 

The belaboring of fists on iron was resumed as if in 
panic. 

“To the last man and the last rupee—and then the de¬ 
luge !" said the same voice. 

The beating on the outer door redoubled—something 
like the fluttering of a moth against a window-pane, but 
heavier. 

“Chullunder Ghose!" 

“O gods whom I have mocked, am I in hell? Who 
knows my name?" 

“Strike a match, Jeremy!" 

The light, as the sound of its striking, was nearly 
swallowed in the blackness of a domed roof. But a few 
rays showed two oxen yoked to a two-wheeled covered 
cart, one standing and the other lying down, while a 
fat man humped against the temple door shielded his eyes 
with a forearm. 

Jeff laughed, and Jeremy heaped swift conclusions 
into one mess to be brushed away: 

“Selling out to the enemy ? Double-crossing us ? Got 
captured? What's the secret, babu-ji?" 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


243 


“They greet me with an insult! Oh, my elements! A 
Frenchman would have fallen on my neck! This Anglo- 
Saxon race is-” 

“—in a hurry!” Jeremy cut in. “Omit the captions— 
spill beans!” 

“Are spilt! Any one can pick up same! Was suit¬ 
ably engaged in losing ox-cart—uncamouflaged and less 
amenable to shrinkage than well fed elephant or long¬ 
distance cannon. Very exercised in mind— verb. sap. 
Could neither sell nor give away same for obvious mo¬ 
tives. Iiyena-headed shroff* approached clandestinely 
refused to lend even small sum on such security without 
proof of ownership. Same being non est in legal verbi¬ 
age, sought to leave oxen straying in public thorough¬ 
fare. Brute beasts, having appetites, refused to be lost, 
and followed lone acquaintance—me!—presumably on 
off-chance. Most perplexing! Prayed. Not often effi¬ 
cacious, gods who are neglected in between-times contin¬ 
uing stand-offish in emergency as working rule. Never¬ 
theless, bright notion burst bomb-like on imagination. 
Bring outfit here! Deposit same in midst of enemy, de¬ 
camping forthwith. Off-shoulder burden of responsibil¬ 
ity in lap of adversary, handicapping same! No sooner 
said than attempted—came here—door open—drove in— 
caught by curiosity was urged by inner impulses to for¬ 
age, being poor babu with family in need of aliment. 
Shut temple-door accordingly in fear of observation from 
without. Immediately all was dark! Panic! Terror- 
stricken! Sought to open door again and failed! O 
God, what shall we do?” 


♦Money-lender. 



244 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Jeff Ramsden felt his way to the temple-door and 
groped for the fastenings. 

“Where are our friends ?” he asked. 

“Presumably in office wondering what next! Oh, we 
are in the wrong place for solaces of friendship! O my 
God, what next!” 

Jeremy, groping, lifted Cyprian into the ox-cart and 
asked him to stay in there. Ramsden discovered the trick 
of the door-fastening and set his strength against a spring 
that held a beam in place. It yielded inch by inch. 

“Pull on the door!” he grunted. 

Chullunder Ghose obeyed and in another second sat 
down hard on the stone floor, blinded by inrushing light. 
The street outside was bathed in the early sunshine, and a 
loiterer or two—the usual beggars and the usual social 
nondescripts—turned to observe what might be. The 
least commotion would have brought a crowd wondering. 
Whatever was to be done must be commonplace—as calm 
and apparently in keeping with ancient precedent as all 
the other unnoticed extravagances of a land of paradox. 

Jeff glanced behind him, screwing his eyes up to pene¬ 
trate the gloom. 

“Chuck the prisoner in!” 

“Leave him!” urged Jeremy. 

Jeff strode into the dark, felt the prisoner with his 
toe, gathered him up, and hove him like a sack of pota¬ 
toes in through the embroidered curtains. 

“Chullunder Ghose! Get in and sit on him!” 

The babu knew better than to disobey. Jeff in that 
mood is force in motion, not to be turned aside or made 
to cease. 

“Jeremy! Walk in front!” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


245 


Jeremy looked once at him, no more afraid of Jeff 
than of the oxen, yet aware of something else. The idea 
that had caught Jeff Ramsden in its orbit and was using 
him as steam can use the locomotive, was irresistible. He 
grinned, saluted impudently, turned on his heel, and led 
the way, the rents that the woman had made in his yellow 
smock making him look more than ever like a member of 
India’s great uncountered and unquestioned beggar-holy- 
men. 

Jeff, with a tail in each hand and his toes at work, 
tooled the ox-cart carefully out through the temple-door, 
leaving it gaping wide behind him, not once looking back, 
assuming to the best of his ability the expression of bored 
insolence that sits so often on the faces of men who deal 
with privilege. Even his voice as he cried to the oxen 
(that refuse to go unless they hear agony) had the tired 
note of second-hand sanctity. The ox-cart bumped over 
the cobbles. The splendid, hungry brutes helped them¬ 
selves at random from frequent sacks of grain beneath 
the street-side awnings, and from infrequent carts—ob¬ 
jurgated, but indifferent from long use. Jeremy re¬ 
proved with time-worn proverbs some one who kicked 
the off-side bullock in the mouth for too bold robbery. 
All was well; or all seemed well, until from behind em¬ 
broidered curtains at Jeff’s back Chullunder Ghose piped 
up again. 

“Not knowing plans, not offering to pass on same. 
Respectfully advise attention, nevertheless! In Chandni 
Chowk and environments this ox-cart will be as invisible 
as elephants in Pall Mall! Ford car might pass through 
unnoticed. Airplane would not cause comment. We are 
antique anachronism, subject to inquisitive police and 


246 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


mockery of youthful element. I urge judiciousness! 
Moreover, of two religious personages in my charge, one 
peeps through the curtains at the rear and the other 
chokes as if the gag were disagreeing with him. On 
which one shall I sit ?” 

It was Father Cyprian who solved that riddle—he who 
eased the gag in the prisoner’s mouth in time to prevent 
asphyxiation, and he who whispered to Jeff through the 
front curtains, annoying Chullunder Ghose, who yearns 
to enjoy full confidence in everything. 

“I have seen a friend of mine—Bhima Ghandava by 
name. I did not know he was in India. He must have 
just returned from his travels. We shall be safe in his 
house.” 

“Who is he? Will he admit us?” Jeff objected. Jeff’s 
mind was bent on another course, and he yielded un¬ 
gracefully. 

“Yes, he will admit us. He will hide this cart. He is 
my friend.” 

“Which way?” 

Jeff drove his toe under the tail of the near ox, crying 
like a sea-bird in the gale’s lee, and they changed direc¬ 
tion, leaving Jeremy to walk the middle of a street alone 
until he turned of his own accord and took the situation 
in. Thereafter he strove to follow with dignity, as he 
had led with grace. 

They wended time-hallowed streets, avoiding the 
great thoroughfares and hunting quiet as the homing 
pigeon goes. There might have been a compass under 
the naked crown of Cyprian’s head. And at last they 
reached a wide teak gate in a high wall at an alley’s end, 
where Cyprian, reaching from the ox-cart, pulled a brass 
chain. Eyes scrutinized them through an iron grill. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


247 


“Can you entertain us? Have you a messenger?” 
asked Cyprian. And a voice with a smile in it answered 
in English: 

“Why certainly. Welcome! Come in!” 

Then some one rattled iron bars, and the great gate 
swung inward to admit them. 



JQiUttMl tl 


CHAPTER XV 


'abandon can't and cant all ye who enter here!" 


/ E ’ RE no good !” 

\y Athelstan King was spokesman, on a cushion 
on the office floor with his shoulders wedged into the 
corner and Grim facing him, on another cushion, backed 
against the desk. King was suffering from ex-officialitis, 
a disease that gets men harder in proportion to their 
length of service. His best work had been done without 
the shadow of officialdom—over the border, where the 
longest purse, the longest wit, and the longest knife are 
Law—but that had not preserved him from official com¬ 
mendation afterward, which is a poison more subtle than 
cocaine. 

Grim, on the other hand, had never been praised by 
any one except his enemies, and by them only for ulterior 
purposes. 

“I feel good," said Grim, yawning and keeping an 
94R 








THE NINE UNKNOWN 


249 


eye on the prisoner, who was blindfolded and tied behind 
the desk. 

“Phah! Melikani!”* remarked Ali of Sikunderam, 
sitting son-less and despondent with his back against the 
door. “Moreover, shaven and unmarried! What do you 
know of life’s bitterness ?” 

“Nothing!” Grim agreed. “Life’s sweet.” 

“I have lost my son—my best son!” Ali grumbled. 
“Allah is Lord of Mercies, but my Habibullah was a 
jewel too good to die.” 

They had heard that a dozen times at least between 
the night that seemed a thousand years away and morn¬ 
ing that was just beginning to describe how villainously 
filthy was the office window. They spared their 
comments. 

“I dare not claim the body, but the Wakf\ will bury 
it, which is something.” 

Narayan Singh, his black beard resting on his chest, 
woke out of a reverie and seemed to consider Ali for the 
best part of a minute. 

“Unless your remaining sons are more wakeful an(j 
alert than pigs that perish, they will be even as Habibul¬ 
lah,” he said presently. 

“Pigs?” Ali bridled at the word. Nerves were on 
edge that morning. “My sons are posted all about us as 
the eyes of angels! What do you mean by pigs ?” 

“I go to see how many of them sleep,” the Sikh an¬ 
swered. “Let me pass.” 

Ali moved away from the door ungraciously and as 
slowly as he dared. If the Sikh had only weighed a little 


♦American. 

fMoslem charitable fund. 



250 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


less—had only lacked an inch or so of reach—had only a 
shade less courage and a shorter list of dead men to his 
credit—there would have been a fight that minute. As it 
was, there was only a delay while Ali removed his mat, 
lest the Sikh’s foot subject it to defilement. Narayan 
Singh strode out, and Ali slammed the door behind him 
with violence that made the clouded-glass pane rattle. 

“We erred in demeaning our society, admitting per¬ 
sons without izzat”* he announced to whom it might 
concern. 

“Chup!” said King and Grim together—a very rude 
word in the circumstances. 

Neither of them cared who knew that Narayan Singh 
might have their blood and bank accounts to back him for 
the asking. 

“There’s dust in my lungs!” announced King. “This 
office building is a fire-trap. If the enemy marked us 
down they’ll burn the whole block. We’ll have drawn ill 
fate on to the heads of a hundred people—or more. Sup¬ 
pose we move on.” 

“Where to?” Grim objected. “How will Rammy and 
Jeremy find us ? This was the rendezvous.” 

“Was! If they were alive they’d be here.” 

“Life’s longer than that,” Grim objected. “Then 
there’s Chullunder Ghose-” 

King interrupted, smiling with a tired, wry face—not 
cynical, but sorry, because of the probabilities: 

“They’ve caught him with the ox-cart. There must 
be a million ways to get into trouble with that contrap¬ 
tion. We shouldn’t have sent him.” 

“But we did,” Grim answered. “Here’s our place 
until some one shows up.” 


*Honor. (There is no exact equivalent.) 




THE NINE UNKNOWN 


251 


King knew that. Left to himself he would never have 
suggested any other course. Had he doubted Grim he 
would never have voiced his own doubts. But there is 
comfort in the privilege of pouring forth unwisdom to be 
contradicted. He had been that kind of rebuttal-witness 
for many a good man in the toils of discouragement. It 
was his turn. 

“Oh, go to hell!’’ he answered wearily. 

For an hour after that they sat in silence, listening to 
the brassy ticking of the export-clock—the quarreling of 
birds along the roof-edge—all the noises that an Indian 
population makes in getting ready for the day—unpleas¬ 
ant noises for the most part from the western view. Al¬ 
ternately they slept by fits and starts, but there was al¬ 
ways one of them awake, and all three instantly caught 
the rhythm of Narayan Singh’s returning feet. Ali 
opened the door for him unbidden, forgetful already of 
the dawn’s resentment. 

“And the boys—my sons——?” 

“Are awake now!” the Sikh assured him, and faced 
the others to announce his news. 

“There are tales in the street of an ox-cart, driven by 
a god some say—some name the god—wandering all night 
about the city. The bunnias laugh, but the crowd is say¬ 
ing it portends events. Men say the oxen were as big as 
elephants, and the cart like the Car of Jaggernathi! They 
say it means India will rise and free herself!” 

“Has the hour come for the North then?” wondered 
Ali, plucking at his knife. 

“If six men of the North stay awake, I think none in 
yellow can pass them. But if the enemy should come in 
pink or green—above all green—” Narayan Singh went 
on. 



252 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“My sons are not fools!” Ali countered hotly, getting 
to his feet. 

But Narayan Singh took little notice of him. 

“If a man in green came, asking for the whereabouts 
of friends of Father Cyprian, I think our six would let 
him through unchallenged-” 

“You lie! By Allah, in your beard, you lie!” said Ali 
with his left hand on his long knife, thrusting the hilt 
outward. 

“I think the man in green is past the inner-guard al¬ 
ready,” said Narayan Singh, with his ear cocked for the 
outer passage but his eye on Ali’s weapon. 

“A man with green silk lining to his long cloak, and 
on his forehead a caste-mark such as I never saw— 
two triangles, one on the other. A man with a woman’s 
smile-” 

“My sons would gut him!” Ali swore. 

But Narayan Singh opened the door. A man who 
answered well enough to the description walked in with 
the considerate deference of one who needs defer to no¬ 
body. The smile was a woman’s as the Sikh had said, and 
the face a preserver of secrets, although sunnily hand¬ 
some. Nothing that that man wanted to conceal would 
ever become news. He told nothing—gave away nothing, 
except that he was something of a dandy and compara¬ 
tively well-to-do. The caste-mark on his brow—two yel¬ 
low triangles one on the other—told nothing; one could 
not even guess whether he was Hindu or Mohammedan; 
his eyes were like a Parsi’s, and his costume was a com¬ 
promise—European shoes for instance, and imported 
socks showing under the green-lined old-gold cloak. 

“Friends of Father Cyprian?” he asked, glancing from 
face to face. 




THE NINE UNKNOWN 


253 


There was no challenge in his glance, and no fear. 
He did not see a prisoner in yellow peeping at him from 
around the desk, but Ali did. 

King got off the floor and advanced toward him. 

“We’re anxious for news of Cyprian,” he said. 

“I was told to bring three sahibs —Grim, King and 
Narayan Singh.” 

“By whom? To bring us where?” King asked. 

“By Father Cyprian. As to where—that is-” 

He hesitated, giving King full opportunity to frame 
whatever speech he had in mind. And King flung irreso¬ 
lution to the winds: 

“Fact is, we’re afraid to be seen on the streets,” he 
confessed. “There were incidents last night. Arrest 
would be inconvenient. We-” 

“I have a closed car,” the newcomer announced. 

But that eased no anxieties. A closed car outside an 
office in that narrow street would only arouse curiosity. 
The first inquisitive policeman would learn the car’s num¬ 
ber after which to trace its course through Delhi would 
not call for much ingenuity. 

But the anonymous messenger told where he had left 
the car, which of itself was proof that he could only come 
from friends. Then within the minute, leaving Ali to 
guard their prisoner and gather the somnolent sons be¬ 
neath his wings, King, Grim and Narayan Singh were in 
full flight by the private route, through the warehouse 
where men dealt in wholesale drugs and outlawed poli¬ 
tics—out by a back-door to another street—across that to 
a sub-cellar gambling-den, whose lawless owner could not 
afford to tell tales—out by a window into a yard—across 
the yard into a shed where a Jew swapped camels and 



254 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


was hand-in-glove with all illicit traffickers—through his 
side-door into a blacksmith's shop, and out of that into a 
street where a big closed Daimler with crimson curtains 
waited. It looked like a Maharajah’s car, but lacked the 
royal insignia, and there was no small platform up behind 
for footmen. 

“If your honors please-” 

The suave guide, holding his cloak to show as little 
of the green lining as might be, bowed them in, followed, 
and slammed the door—which was signal and direction; 
for without a word said, a driver who looked like a 
Gourkha but wore spectacles, started away at the highest 
speed conceivable in those thronged, narrow streets. 

In fifteen minutes, by the grace of those who guide 
the comets in their wild ellipse, having hit nothing, killed 
nobody, he blew his horn in the throat of a cul-de-sac; 
and by the time they reached the end of it a great gate 
opened, admitting them without reducing speed. 

They could hear the great gate slam, and the clang of 
iron bars that fell in place, but could only see ahead be¬ 
cause of the crimson curtains. And ahead was nothing 
but the whitewashed stall the car belonged in, wide open 
to receive it. They came to a standstill with the front 
wheels on its threshold. 

But their guide opened the near-side door and they 
stepped out into a garden of half an acre in which a foun¬ 
tain played. A house, that certainly had been a temple 
not so long ago, stood face to the fountain, and there 
were flowers everywhere—in hanging baskets—in niches 
where perhaps the images of gods had been—on steps and 
balconies, in windows on a score of ledges, on the roofs 
raised one above the other—and in masses to right and 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


255 


left of the driveway and the walk that curved between the 
fountain and the house. 

They were thirty yards away from a pillared portico 
that shaded the house-entrance. Rioting colors, the 
splash of water and the sunlight on ancient masonry, the 
quiet, the coo of doves, and that peace that comes from 
absolute proportion of design, united to make them feel in 
another world, or else on another plane in this one. The 
assurance of their guide completed the effect. Unques¬ 
tionably he was confident of introducing them to 
wonders. 

“Please feel at home,” he said, smiling. “There 
should be a sign over this doorway adapted from the 
famous warning above the gate of Dante’s Hell—Aban¬ 
don CAN’T and CANT all ye who enter here! Another 
mystery? Ha-ha! You will understand it after break¬ 
fast.” 

Breakfast! They could smell new-roasted coffee and 
hot rolls! They were willing to abandon almost anything 
that instant. Only manners checked a stampede! 

“I would burn a city for half such impulse!” swore 
Narayan Singh. “My belly yearns like a woman for her 
lover!” 

But a man came forward in the portico to greet them, 
who might have checked a royal progress. Not that there 
was evidence of majesty about him, or of potential vio¬ 
lence. There was nothing whatever forbidding in his 
whole surroundings. He might have been the spirit of 
the place, but his smile was compact of all the manly ele¬ 
ments, and hate omitted. 

He was middle-sized, more than middle-aged and yet 
so hale and well preserved that his age was difficult to 


256 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


guess, nor was his nationality determinable, although like 
his messenger he wore distinctly oriental clothes—a cos¬ 
tume of compromises for the sake of comfort--Hindu on 
the whole. But he wore no caste-mark. There were no 
twin triangles on his brow beneath the plain white turban. 

His beard, and, as presently appeared, his hair, were 
iron-gray, not long but affluent and carefully groomed. 
Hands, face, forehead were netted with tiny wrinkles that 
seemed to have been smoothed out rather than caused by 
time; the impression was that he was growing young 
again, after having faced the worst the world could do to 
him. Great hunters, great explorers, great law-givers, 
great sailors have such lines as his. He knew. He had 
looked in the jaws of infinitely worse than death and had 
not flinched. Fear for himself had no hold on him. 
Therefore he was lord of all he surveyed, and not proud, 
because pride is foolish, whereas he had humor. The 
humor shone forth from his eyes. Ease made her home 
with him. 

“Please feel welcome,” he said in English. “I am 
Bhima Ghandava, and this is my house. Your friends 
are up-stairs. Your wonderful ox-cart is in my stable, 
the oxen have been fed, and so have your friends and 
their prisoner. As soon as you have washed you will find 
breakfast waiting. After that I am sure you would 
rather talk than sleep, although the sleep would do you 
more good, so please come to the library.” 

There was nothing to do but accept his invitation and 
follow his green-lined chela * into a place where marble, 
cool water, soap, towels, and the bathroom smell made 
life for the moment no longer a dream but an exquisite 
luxury. 


^Disciple. 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


257 


The white man thinks the bath is a religion peculiar 
to himself. The English made a privileged Order of it 
centuries ago, and it is the only creed that the whole West 
can agree on. But it also is the one lone recognizable 
common denominator by which West and East may un¬ 
derstand each other in the end—the outward and visible 
product of an inborn yearning to be clean. There was no 
difference between Grim’s and King’s devotion to the 
ritual and Narayan Singh’s, except perhaps the Sikh en¬ 
joyed his most. 

Then rolls and coffee on white table-linen in a cham¬ 
ber in which priests had kept the Mysteries before men 
forgot what such things are and what simplicity must go 
with them. 

An atmosphere outlives the men who made it. It is 
easy to feel lawless in a smugglers’ den—brave and de¬ 
termined ’tween-decks in a ship just home from drifting 
in the polar ice. It was easy to feel then and there that 
the hatch was off the hold of the impossible and all things 
waited for accomplishment by them who dared, and knew. 
There was a sense of being in the very womb of faultless 
Destiny. 

“I would trade my whole accomplishment and all my 
medals, just to know I was worthy to sit here!” said 
Narayan Singh piously—then set his teeth into a buttered 
roll and washed a titanic mouthful down with coffee that 
smelt of paradise. 

There were no attendants. The messenger in green- 
lined finery whom their host had called his chela vanished 
when he had shown them where to go. None intruded 
on their privacy until the food was all devoured, and even 
then it was an old acquaintance who burst in on them. 


258 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


weary-eyed and as contented as a bear among the honey- 
pots. 

“Sahibs! Exquisite adventure! Luck at last! Gods 
whom we have long offended have forgiven us! We are 
in house of holy adept, whose tobacco is as perfect as his 
point of view! I swear, thou swearest, he swears! I 
drink, thou drinkest, he drinks! Rammy sahib consumed 
one quart of imported stout at seven a. m. Jeremy sahib 
had whisky-soda. Me, I have drunk cognac, contrary to 
caste and precedent. Am intoxicated with exuberance! 
Ghandava sahib drank gin—I am sure—I saw him! He 
does all things same as everybody. Sahibs, secret is, he 
doesn't give a damn! He knows too much! He is incor¬ 
porated essence of accumulated ancient knowledge! Ask 
him anything—I bet he knows it! He put oil on Rammy 
sahib's injuries that has made him feel like pigs in clover. 
You, you incredulate—but me, I know a good thing when 
I see same. I want somebody to bet with!" 

Chullunder Ghose sat down cross-legged where a shaft 
of golden sunshine quivered between the slats of a shut¬ 
ter, and fanned himself with a handkerchief. 

“Am commanded to escort you three sahibs to sanctum 
sanctorum soon as gorges rise at thought of further ra¬ 
tions. Personally I ate nine rolls and drank a gallon. 
Emulate me. There is lots more!” 

They followed him up stone stairs worn by the tread 
of ancient feet—stairs set in the heart of the masonry by 
builders who had no need to economize in labor or ma¬ 
terial, and passed between what once had been the priests' 
rooms, walking on rugs whose origin was Asia from 
Mongolia to Damascus. At the end of one long passage 
was a door at least a foot thick carved with the stories of 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


259 


the gods; Chullunder Ghose thumped that with both fists. 
It opened at once, as if by a hidden mechanism. 

They found themselves in what was probably the larg¬ 
est room in the building. It opened by means of high 
windows on a deep veranda banked with flowers, and its 
ceiling was vaulted in four sections, with one pillar in the 
midst to support the inner ends of all four arches. Some¬ 
where were hidden ventilators through which fans drove 
cool air; the purr of the fans was dimly audible and, just 
as with Ghandava’s costume, there was enough mod¬ 
ernity about the place to provide comfort without sacri¬ 
ficing any aspect worth preserving. 

The deep, long window-seats, for instance, were up¬ 
holstered in brocaded cloth, and the stone floor was 
spread with several layers of rugs. There were books 
wherever shelves could be fitted between projecting por¬ 
tions of the masonry; and an enormous toucan, neither 
caged nor chained, sat perched on a bracket projecting 
from one wall, looking futuristic. 

Bhima Ghandava himself rose out of an overstuffed 
leather armchair to greet them. Ramsden was sprawling 
in another one. Jeremy sat cross-legged on a divan in a 
corner near the big bird, whose phonetics he was trying 
at intervals to imitate. The prisoner, unbound, sat like a 
big bronze idol on the floor with his back to the window; 
and Chullunder Ghose resumed the perch he had left at 
one end of a window-seat. Cyprian was not in sight, but 
there was a sound of book-leaves quickly turning that 
suggested him. 

“Please be at home,” smiled Ghandava. 

They collapsed into deep armchairs, but Narayan 
Singh gave up the effort to feel comfortable in his and 


260 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


after a minute squatted on the floor instead, with his back 
against it. Bhima Ghandava resumed the window-seat 
vis-a-vis to Chullunder Ghose, and then—as if he might 
have been watching through a peep-hole for the proper 
moment—the green-lined chela entered, addressed him as 
“most reverend guru,”* asked whether he needed any¬ 
thing, and was dismissed. 

It was conceivable—although not certain by a thou¬ 
sand chances—that that little incident had been designed 
on purpose to suggest the proper attitude of deep respect. 
Perhaps the chela had himself conceived it to that end. 
Ghandava was not in need of the sort of mechanism that 
surrounds mere royalty. He provided his own atmos¬ 
phere. 

“I am trying to make this prisoner feel at home, too,” 
he said with an air of comical regret, “but he seems to 
yearn for brimstone and red-hot coals! This is too 
tame!” 

The bronze man sat immobile. Not a feature moved. 
His wrists were unbound but he had crossed his arms over 
his breast and held them so as if hypnotized. The proud 
smile on his thick lips seemed to have been frozen there. 
He hardly seemed to breathe. He did not blink. When 
King, Grim and Narayan Singh entered he did not so 
much as glance at them. He was like a dead man at a 
feast. 

“He imprisons himself!” said Ghandava. “You see 
before you the embodiment of fear and not the slightest 
need for it. No combination of physical terrors could 
reduce him to that condition. He is self-hypnotized. Pie 
is afraid with a fear that is within himself—that he has 


♦Teacher, 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


261 


cultivated in himself—that he has used to govern others. 
Dynamite could hardly loosen it. What shall we do with 
him?” 

That was hard to answer. 

“He’s the head of their gang, and he’s dangerous,” 
said Jeff. 

“To whom?” Ghandava asked. “He seems safe to us 
at present!” 

Whereat Cyprian piped up, emerging from behind the 
only detached bookcase in the room, wiping spectacles and 
looking as if he had been cataloging all his life. 

“You are right!” he said sharply. “He is only a dan¬ 
ger to his friends. I say, release him!” 

Ghandava glanced at Jeff, whose fist had done the 
capturing. By right of lex non scripta* the decision was 
up to him. But Jeff, though an irresistible force when his 
mind is made up, is no leaper at blind conclusions or in¬ 
terpreter of men’s minds. His forte is common sense, 
applied. 

“Stow him incommunicado, while we talk,” he sug¬ 
gested, and that was carried by acclamation. 

Bhima Ghandava summoned the green-lined chela by 
means of an electric bell. 

“Such arrogant simplicity! How simple are the 
great! He who could think and be obeyed! To use a 
common bell—such meekness!” exclaimed Chullunder 
Ghose, rolling his eyes in an ecstasy. 

Bhima Ghandava explained what was required. The 
chela addressed remarks to the prisoner, who took no 
more notice of them than the image of Buddha would 
if a fly had rested on it. King leaned over and prodded 


*Unwritten law. 



262 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Chullunder Ghose in the stomach with a pole meant for 
closing windows. 

“Less emotion !” he commanded. 

Jeff hove himself out of his chair and seized the pris¬ 
oner under the arms. 

“Lead the way,” he said simply. 

But as if the threat of violence and the physical con¬ 
tact were all that were needed to resolve the prisoner’s 
fear, he instantly began to struggle, springing upright as 
if Jeffs touch had released a spring, and smiting Jeff 
with his clenched fist three times running between the 
eyes. Jeff reeled backward and then, closing with him, 
had to fight like Samson to save his neck from breaking; 
for the bronze man got him by a hold below the arms 
and, spinning him upside-down, crashed his head against 
the floor and set his foot on the bent neck. It was only 
three layers of rugs that saved Jeff from being killed. 

For once “Rammy old top” was in the hands of a 
stronger adversary. Though he swept the man’s legs to¬ 
gether with one arm and threw him, thereafter using 
every artifice he knew, sending home punch after terrific 
punch when opening offered, he could not pin his adver¬ 
sary down. His previous injuries, though rendered 
nearly painless by Ghandava’s oils, were a handicap. 
Each sledge-hammer blow that his opponent landed, each 
volcanic wrench at Jeff’s arms and legs, made matters 
worse. 

The end could have only been postponed for seconds. 
The others began to rush to Jeff’s assistance. Even 
Chullunder Ghose was on tip-toe to plunge into the fray, 
and Cyprian lay down his spectacles to look for some¬ 
thing heavy. But Ghandava’s out-stretched hand kept all 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


263 


of them, chela included, standing back, they not knowing 
what he meant to do, yet certain he could command the 
situation in a second when he chose. Even Cyprian ex¬ 
pected it, and laid down the heavy brass vase he had 
picked up. 

But for half-a-minute the pace was too quick for 
Ghandava, or so it seemed. Jeff and his prisoner twisted 
and writhed like bears at war in spring-time. The bronze 
man hurled Jeff clear, sprang to his feet again, seized a 
wrought-iron cobra meant to hold a lamp and lifted it to 
brain him. 

The thing weighed about two hundred pounds, and 
Jeff’s forearm, raised to intercept it, would have smashed 
like kindling. 

Yet it was Ghandava’s hand—smooth, soft palm up¬ 
ward—that met the full force of the blow, arresting it 
midway—a hand that looked as if it could not lift the 
bronze snake, let alone resist it! And he said one word, 
in Sanskrit possibly, at least in an unknown tongue, that 
seemed to stiffen the prisoner again from head to foot, so 
that he stood transfixed with the heavy bronze thing in 
his hands, arrested in mid-motion. 

“Now take him away,” he said quietly; and instead 
of Jeff the chela touched him. The giant set down the 
iron cobra and followed the chela like a man in a dream— 
out through a door, at the end of the room, that closed on 
both of them. 

“If we use force in their way they can conquer us,” 
Ghandava said almost apologetically. “It was what you 
know as luck, friend Ramsden, that enabled you to cap¬ 
ture him last night. You took him by surprise, or he 
would have twisted you as a basket-maker twists the reeds 


264 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


between his hands. The same with every other force 
they use; if you stand up against it, it will flatten you. 
You saw me then? What I did was to redirect his 
energy. If I had turned it inward it would have de¬ 
stroyed him. Instead, I used it to arrest that iron weight 
in mid-career—used his energy, not mine. It is only a 
question of knowledge.” 

'Tike riding a horse!” suggested Jeremy. “But how? 
Tell you what, sir, I’ll swap you! Show me that trick, 
and I’ll teach you any two you like of mine!” 

Ghandava laughed merrily and got back to his place 
on the window-seat. 

“I rather doubt my need to know your tricks,” he 
answered, “and to learn mine, if you care to call them 
tricks, would take more years than you believe you have 
at your disposal. Besides—how should I dare to teach 
you, if I could?” 

“Why not?” asked Jeremy. “I’m not a crook.” 

Ghandava smiled again. 

“Few of us are what we think we are,” he answered. 
“You—all of you—are on what Hindus call the Wheel. 
You are tied to Destiny, the agents of it, bound in your 
appointed places. Every star—planet—meteorite—each 
speck of dust that swings into view does so in obedience 
to law. Order is the first law. None can escape his 
destiny.” 

“Ah! Now we all get fortunes told! I shiver on 
brink of expectancy! Am I to be plutocrat? To go to 
jail? To travel overseas? To be distinguished person¬ 
age?” 

“You’re going to be prodded in the belly!” King 
assured him. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


265 


'‘Ouch! Sahib, there should be a law against this! 
Cease!” 

“If I could tell fortunes, do you think I would?” 
Ghandava asked. 

Cyprian, with his thumb between the pages of a black 
book, came toward the window and chose a high-backed 
chair in which he could sit without doubling up like a 
rag doll. He preferred dignity to any kind of comfort. 

“To be brief with you, Ghandava,” he said, as if call¬ 
ing a meeting to order, “we are all in your debt for 
princely hospitality. Is there more we may expect of 
you? Our purpose is to expose the Nine Unknown. 
We want the secrets of the Nine Unknown—their books 
—their treasure ” 

“Their treasure!” sighed Chullunder Ghose. 

“Their treasure and their knowledge!” Grim agreed. 

“Their books!” said Cyprian. “Can you help us?” 

“Can I, do you mean, or will I ?” asked Ghandava. 

He smiled as if he found the situation funny. 



THAT IS A TRUE SPEECH !” 


began to pace the floor with hands be- 

him. 

begin with, nothing is impossible!” he said, with 
an abruptness that made Cyprian blink. 

Chullunder Ghose sighed like an epicure in presence 
of his favorite dish, deftly avoiding King’s attentions with 
the window-pole. King was in favor of hard facts and no 
delirium. 

“Does it strike any of you that this account of the 
Nine Unknown is ridiculous?” Ghandava asked. 

“Not in the least!” said Jeremy promptly, and the 
others nodded. 

“We know,” said Cyprian. 

“Da Gama told us,” said Chullunder Ghose. 

“They’ve persecuted us ever since we took the field 
against them,” said Narayan Singh. 

266 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


267 


“That is what appears to me ridiculous;” Ghandava 
answered. “You presume a body of nine men, inheritors, 
as you describe them, of the scientific secrets of the an¬ 
cients. You credit these nine with such wisdom that ac¬ 
cording to you they have been able to accumulate enor¬ 
mous quantities of gold at regular intervals for thousands 
of years without any one discovering either its hiding- 
place or their method. Yet you say they have persecuted 
you without success. How do you propose to account for 
their alleged success along one line, and their rather 
clumsy series of failures along another? Do the two 
accounts appear to you compatible ?” 

“They don't/’ Grim said. “We decided yesterday 
that those who are attacking us probably belong to a dif¬ 
ferent organization.” 

“Does it occur to you,” Ghandava asked, “that these 
Nines who have attacked you are themselves in search of 
the real Nine?” 

“That had occurred to this babu,” Chullunder Ghose 
admitted self-complacently, with his hands folded across 
his stomach. 

“Why didn’t you tell us then?” King demanded. 

“Belly being tender part of my anatomy, have said 
nothing that might provoke assault on same,” the babu 
answered with both eyes on King’s prodding pole. 

Jeremy produced the three coins that remained from 
Da Gama’s original treasure trove. He passed them to 
Cyprian, who handed them to Ghandava. 

“Those look like evidence to me,” said Jeremy. 

“Don’t forget,” said King, “we’ve another prisoner in 
the office, who swears he was told off to kill a member of 
the real Nine in Benares.” 


268 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Ghandava nodded, but Cyprian joined issue with him. 
“Why believe what he says? The organization is a 
series of Nines, each member of a Nine being himself a 
captain of another Nine and so on. I am entirely satis¬ 
fied on that point. Thus, the only means of control or of 
investigation is from the top. Da Gama said so. One 
Nine knows nothing of another. For all we know the 
Nine Unknown may be at war with one another. A sub¬ 
ordinate told off to murder one of the Principals might 

say in honest ignorance-” 

Ghandava interrupted him with a gesture. 

“Doubt from the unexpected quarter! I see I must 
explain/’ he said; but he paused for almost a minute. 
His next words were dramatic— 

“I am myself commissioned by the Nine Unknown!” 
For a second there was silence. Then— 

“God bless my soul!” exclaimed Cyprian. 

Ghandava laughed. Cyprian crossed himself unos¬ 
tentatiously. The others betrayed astonishment tinged 
with incredulity, except that Narayan Singh and Chul- 
lunder Ghose, while surprised into speechlessness, looked 
disposed to credit almost anything. 

Ghandava on the whole seemed not displeased with 
the reception of his statement. 

“The 'Nine Unknown’ are known to themselves by 
another name; and by yet another name to their few con¬ 
fidants ; but they do exist, and they are the inheritors of 
all the scientific knowledge of the ancients,” he went on. 

“And the gold that has vanished in the course of cen¬ 
turies? Are they inheritors of that?” asked Ramsden. 

“My friend, if I should know the secrets of the Nine, 
does it occur to you that I would tell them?” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


269 


“Their books ! Their books!” Cyprian muttered, and 
Ghandava took that up with him. 

“Others have wanted those. They who burned the 
library at Alexandria did so in order to secure them, and 
that was when men’s memories were fresher than they 
are now. They failed, as all others have done. The Em¬ 
peror Akbar tried to get the books. He plundered India 
for them. But he died in ignorance of their whereabouts, 
although in those days some of them were kept within an 
hour’s walk of Akbar’s palace.” 

“Then you know where they are now!” Cyprian said 
excitedly. He could keep neither lips nor fingers still. 

“My friend, I have just returned from extensive 
travels. I know nothing, beyond that the Nine sent for 
me and that I have been commissioned to perform a 
duty.” 

“Where are the Nine now?” Cyprian asked him, and 
Ghandava laughed. 

“We wander from the subject,” he replied. “These 
spurious Nines, whose organization you describe, have 
existed for centuries. They seek the undiscoverable 
secrets of the Unknown Nine. Their own secrets are 
mere hypnotism, mere trickery, mere evil hidden under 
the mask of Kali-worship, Thuggee and what not else. 
In the place of Knowledge they have grafted superstition, 
and in place of Truth, fear. They rule by fear, over- and 
under-riding the law by keeping the custodians of public 
peace in a constant state of fear of them. They have 
nothing whatever in common with the Nine who have 
commissioned me, and who are altruists—simply.” 

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Cyprian. *T mean—pardon 
me, I beg to differ! If they were altruists, and have the 


270 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


knowledge you pretend, they would reveal it to the 
world-” 

“For the world’s undoing!” Ghandava added dryly. 

“How can the world be undone by useful knowledge?” 
King objected. 

“Or how can there be too much treasure?” asked 
Chullunder Ghose. “Let loose even the dogs of war- 
devouring monsters!—and give me money enough— 
This babu will buy the victory for either side! If your 
principals have all that money, why didn’t they buy the 
best side in the late fracas of 1914 and finish the business 
swiftly ? Ouch! King sahib, I beseech you, lay the pole 
down!” 

“Why do they not now buy India’s liberty?” Narayan 
Singh demanded. “The British tax-payer-” 

“Who ever purchased liberty?” Ghandava answered. 
“Liberty is earned, or it ceases to exist!” 

“Then what are they hoarding gold for?” Ramsden 
demanded. 

“Altruism?” asked Cyprian with raised eyebrows and 
wrinkled forehead, looking over his spectacles. “Is there 
no need of altruism at this moment ?” 

Ghandava fell back on his smile. 

“You assume too much,” he answered. “Altruism has 
nothing to do with selfishness.” 

“Then your people are not altruists in any recognized 
sense of the word!” snapped Cyprian. 

The old man was getting more and more impatient, 
possibly because he felt the control of the situation and 
of the party slipping from his grasp. Yet it was he who 
had introduced Ghandava. There was not much he could 
do about it. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


271 


"You mean their altruism is not comprehensible to 
you ? Ghandava answered. “You assume that the gold 
that has disappeared for centuries is all accumulated in 
one place and lying useless. I think I can assure you 
that is not so.” 

“But the knowledge?” King objected. 

“The books!” insisted Cyprian. 

Ghandava smiled again and pointed a finger at 
Cyprian. 

“You, my friend, would burn the books if you could 
find them! Akbar, if he had found them, would have 
used the knowledge they contain for the carving of new 
empires. Those who burned the library of Alexandria 
would have done at least that. Those whom you call ‘my 
people’ have their own interpretation of the books and 
their own opinion of their proper use.” 

“But knowledge,” King objected again, “if knowledge 
is true it can’t do harm, can it ?” 

“No? Of what is dynamite the product? Of no 
knowledge?” Ghandava retorted. “Was it ignorance 
that built the big guns and invented poison-gas ?” 

“The money! The money! Where is the money?” 
Chullunder Ghose exclaimed excitedly. 

“Gold is not money. Gold is gold,” Ghandava re¬ 
plied. “Tell me—is humanly comprehensible energy con¬ 
tinuous without fuel ? Energy must be released—is that 
not so? Water—coal—petroleum—the tides—harness¬ 
ing, you call it. Did it never strike you there is more 
energy contained in a ton of gold than in a million tons 
of coal ? Does that open any vistas ? Do you see that to 
squander gold as money would be only to debauch the 
world, which is already too debauched, whereas gold’s 


272 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


energy released in proper ways might change the very 
face of nature? I am telling you no secrets. All the 
chemists know what I am hinting at. They don’t know 
how to release the energy from gold or uranium or tho¬ 
rium, that’s all.” 

“And you?” They chorused the question. He ig¬ 
nored it. 

“These Nines, who are variously disguised as anar¬ 
chists and Kali-worshipers, know very well that the day 
of gold as money is past. Paper based on gold is the 
present medium. Paper serves the purpose. Presently 
the gold will go—as money. It is then that its real po¬ 
tency will be discovered. These three coins that I hold in 
my hand contain sufficient energy to blow the whole of 
Delhi instantly into smithereens. Can you imagine what 
might happen if the wrong individuals should learn the 
secret of releasing that energy ?” 

“Inform the right ones then!” suggested Cyprian, 
with an intonation not quite innocent of sneer. 

“Who are they?” asked Ghandava. “Governments? 
They would use the knowledge to annihilate defenseless 
nations. Scientists? They would incorporate, and then 
subdue the world into a new commercial slavery. The 
churches ?” 

He turned to Cyprian. 

“You—your church, my friend, would burn the books 
containing the secret knowledge—that is by your own 
admission. And tell me: which of the other churches 
would you be disposed to trust?” 

“Well, what do you propose to do with the gold, or the 
energy released from it, or the secret knowledge ?” Grim 
demanded. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


273 


“That, my friend, is fortunately not my province!” 
Ghandava answered, chuckling. “Have you money in 
your purse?” 

Grim nodded. 

“Do you know arithmetic?” 

He nodded again. 

“Some languages? A little natural science? A rep¬ 
utation possibly? Some skill in diplomacy perhaps? A 
little self acquaintance, worth more than all the rest? 
And the sum-total of all that is your capital ?” 

Grim nodded. 

“What do you propose to do with it?” 

Grim grinned, beginning to see the point. 

“Is that my business ?” asked Ghandava. “It is every 
man’s own business what he does with the knowledge that 
he knows! It is the business of those who keep the an¬ 
cient secrets to say what they will do with them. As long 
as they keep the secrets-” 

“I am like a flat balloon!” Chullunder Ghose broke 
in. “Oh grief, why art thou part of me! I who was all 
optimism—how my buoyancy solidifies and bears me 
down! I saw a pyramid of gold. Necessitous by force 
of Karma * how I thanked the gods! And now this holy 
guru takes the pyramid away and gives us energy! Oh 
energy! You jade! I love you not! My belly aches for 
money and a long rest! Ow! King sahib—please!” 

“But if others steal the secret—” Jeremy suggested. 

Ghandava hesitated. If guesswork had a chance of 
uncovering his thoughts, he was speculating whether it 
was safe to continue. He seemed most afraid on Cy- 

*The law that the sins of former lives inevitably must be met 
in this and future ones. 




274 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


prian’s account. They say, with how much truth outsid¬ 
ers never know, that information won by any of his cloth 
is the property of all of his superiors on demand—and 
they are a goodly number. 

However, Ghandava bound none of them by oath. 
Instead—again if guesswork’s aim was true—he limited 
himself to explanations that would not explain, and to 
statements capable of more than one interpretation. That 
is the ancient and accepted way. All prophets and all 
great teachers have adopted it in self-defense. 

“I, too, am on the Wheel,” he said, pacing the floor 
between them like an old sea-captain on the poop. “I 
serve my little purpose in the great design, and thereafter 
disappear. Within my own sphere I am useful; outside 
it helpless. You recall ? You came to me, asking advice 
and assistance.” 

“We’ve heard some bad advice,” said Cyprian with 
the deliberate rudeness that old age claims to justify. 

Ghandava took no notice of it. He even avoided the 
odious alternative of offering the other cheek self-right- 
eously. Not even a fly, departing on the wing, could have 
been less recognized than Cyprian’s remark. 

“You have a plan, I suppose?” he suggested. 

He addressed them all, but they all looked at Cyprian; 
for it was he who had been interrupted while laying down 
the lines of a plan, in his own place, previous to the holo¬ 
caust of books. He seized the opportunity to resume the 
reins. 

“I had a very good plan,” he said peevishly. “I pro¬ 
posed just now that we let a prisoner go, but you have 
hidden him somewhere.” 

Again Bhima Ghandava refused to take offense. An 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


275 


old man's querulousness seemed to mean no more in his 
philosophy than the barking of dogs a mile away. The 
absolute indifference to petulance offended Cyprian more 
than anger might have done and his feeble old hands 
fidgeted more nervously than ever on the chair-arms. 

Jeremy, observing more intently than the others, 
crossed over and sat beside him. Cyprian laid a hand on 
his shoulder and ceased trembling. He was always more 
at ease with Jeremy to lean on. 

“Suppose you tell the plan,” Ghandava suggested, 
sitting back in one of the deep armchairs. 

In that attitude you could imagine him in rooms at 
Oxford or on a grass-bank under a big tree taking part 
in a village council. In fact you could imagine him doing 
almost anything except starting trouble. 

Cyprian, seeming to draw strength from Jeremy, 
obliged himself to smile; but he was plainly subduing 
passion. 

“Had I known, Ghandava, that you are connected with 
the Nine Unknown, I never would have come here. You 
know that,” he said, shaking his head at him. 

“Yes, I know it,” said Ghandava. “That is why I 
never told you, friends though we have been. But now 
that you are here and know the fact, suppose we make the 
best of it ?” 

Ghandava was talking at the others now, through Cy¬ 
prian. It was growing clear that Cyprian had made his 
mind up to withdraw. Ghandava, realizing that, was 
equally determined not to lose the men who, by an a~~ : 
dent, had come within his orbit. 

“The best?” said Cyprian squeakily. “You tell 
you are employed by the Nine—in their confidence — 


276 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


you ask me to tell you my plan for obtaining knowledge 
of them, and perhaps for capturing their books!” 

Ghandava continued smiling, but if he had looked 
superior he would have lost the good-will of every man 
in the room, especially Jeremy. He was not aggressive; 
not on the defensive. He was more like a counsel called 
in to pass judgment on a problem, seeking the solution as 
he listened. 

“You speak as if you had the right to the Nine’s 
books,” he answered quietly. “They would dispute that. 
From certain knowledge I assure you there is nothing on 
earth more impossible than for you to discover where the 
books are. You can not even prove that the books exist!” 

“Have you ever seen them?” Cyprian asked him 
dryly, suddenly motionless, watching under lowered, 
wrinkled lids. 

Ghandava laughed. 

“I have seen some books. How shall I know to which 
of them you refer ?” 

“All of them!” snapped Cyprian. 

“My friend, I will tell you something,” said Ghan¬ 
dava. “There are hundreds of thousands of books, each 
one of which would come within your definition. There 
are libraries in crypts beneath the desert sands, that rep¬ 
resent the knowledge of nations that disappeared before 
Atlantis took shape. There are books whose very alpha¬ 
bet fewer than nine men know, written in a language 
compared to which Sanskrit is a modern tongue. There 
are individual books among those that contain more true 
scientific knowledge than all the works of all the modern 
chemists and metallurgists put together. If you had all 
the books you would have no building big enough to con- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


277 


tain a tenth of them. And if you were twenty years old 
you would not have time to learn the wisdom contained 
in one book—which book, however, it is not within your 
power to find.” 

He spoke as one having authority. But he said no 
more than is commonly said in the East among men who 
look deeper than the daily press for fact, and who listen 
to the real news of the hemispheres that susurrates be¬ 
low or else above the bleatings and bull-boastings of such 
as sell what they call learning in the market-place. Cy¬ 
prian, King and Grim, for instance, were not in the least 
surprised. Narayan Singh nodded. Chullunder Ghose 
assented less silently: 

“I have prayed to the gods; I have even bestowed 
expensive presents on the gods, depriving unfortunate 
family of necessaries to that end. I have promised the 
gods, so often and so suppliantly that they can not help 
having heard—if there are any gods! I have even told 
the priests the gist of my intentions, same being probable 
secret of failure down to date. If I can find one such 
said ancient book and sell same to American Museum, 
U. S. A., I will found orphanage with half of proceeds, 
and no questions asked as to orphans’ pedigree. Our 
Ali of Sikunderam may— Ouch! King sahib, please ap¬ 
ply pole to proper purposes!” 

“So it amounts to this,” Ghandava said. “If your 
purpose is to rid the world of an evil, I am at your serv¬ 
ices in so far as I agree with you what evil is. If you 
hope to intrude on those who have commissioned me, I 
must merely look on. I may possibly prevent you.” 

“Let’s make a bargain then,” suggested Jeremy. 

But Bhima Ghandava had no appetite for bargains 


278 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


He made a grimace more suggestive of contempt than 
anything he had said or done since they entered his house. 

“I will do what I can do, freely/' he answered. 

“We're your guests. Outline what you will do," 
Ramsden suggested. 

Cyprian agreed to that. There was nothing to lose 
by listening to what Ghandava might intend. But the 
trouble was that he intended not to give away his hand. 

“Father Cyprian had a plan/' he said, and folded his 
arms, leaning back to listen. 

“Go on, Pop!" urged Jeremy. “Lead what you've 
got! Make him play higher or pass !" 

Cyprian yielded, not as the men of the world yield, 
but with a sort of dry, implied assertion that surrender 
is a victory. 

“We all discussed a plan—we had agreed—hadn't 
we?—Jeremy to visit Benares—disguised—Chullunder 
Ghose to talk for him—Jeremy to be dumb fakir—do 
tricks— Take the coins of course— Display them— By 
their means attract attention of these rascals-” 

“Attention of the rascals —excellent!” Ghandava 
commented. 

“The others," Cyprian continued, “Ramsden, King, 
Grim, Ali of Sikunderam and all his sons—go to Benares, 
too—disguised as Hindus, naturally. Watch. When 
Jeremy attracts attention of the enemy, they watch—they 
watch. You understand me ? Very well then. That was 
the plan: To watch, and then track down the enemy." 

“I will help you to watch and track down the enemy," 
Ghandava said, as a man might who is promising to vote 
the party ticket. 

He v/as firm, and enthusiastic. Every one in the room 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


279 


believed him, even Cyprian. But to believe is not per¬ 
force to consent. 

“You understand? For my part, I have made no 
promises,” said Cyprian. 

“I have asked none/’ said Ghandava. “What I have 
to give, I give. When do you propose to start? How 
will you travel? Where will you stay when you reach 
Benares ? I will do this for you,” he said, unfolding his 
arms and sitting forward. When he opened his mouth 
suddenly in that way the outlines of his jaw and chin 
showed distinctly through the gray beard and altered his 
whole appearance. He seemed to age enormously—to 
be as old as Cyprian—to know, from having suffered it, 
the whole of earth’s iniquity—and yet to have retained 
(perhaps, though, to have gained) a knowledge and as¬ 
surance beyond human means of measuring. When he 
moved his mouth again, enumerating what he would do, 
the look of old-age vanished and he was almost on ap¬ 
parent footing with Ramsden and Narayan Singh. 

“I will do these things for you; I will arrange for 
your protection-” 

Cyprian snorted, as if he had taken snuff. 

“How?” he demanded. “How?” 

But Ghandava waved aside the interruption. 

“I will give you permission to say you represent the 
Nine Unknown. That will lend authority to Mr. Jere¬ 
my’s claims to be a wizard!” 

“We might say we represented the Nine Unknown 
without any one's permission!” Cyprian objected acidly. 

“You might. But without permission it would be 
very dangerous ” Ghandava assured him; and again there 
was none in the room, not even Cyprian, who doubted. 



280 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Chullunder Ghose shivered and gasped like a fish out 
of water, and Narayan Singh, squatting on the floor, 
leaned forward that his eyes might look closer into 
Ghandava’s. 

Not that Ghandava minded any of those demonstra¬ 
tions. He seemed oblivious to praise as well as criticism 
of himself. 

“I will provide you with means of traveling to Be¬ 
nares,” he went on. 

“Oh for the wings of the spirit! Give us but a bless¬ 
ing, great Mahatma, and we shall be in Benares in a 
minute! Put power on us! Ouch!” 

King returned the window-pole to its place at rest 
beside him, and Ghandava continued, ignoring the babu’s 
rhapsody: 

“I will provide quarters for you in Benares. And a 
man shall guide you into secret places.” 

“What in return for all this?” Jeff demanded. 

“Nothing in return. I am proposing to help you in 
tracking down your enemy,” Ghandava answered. 

“Protection? You spoke of protection,” said Cyprian. 
“How do you propose to do that? Black art?” 

Ghandava smiled at him. 

“The enemy will use black art,” he answered. “The 
enemy will destroy itself. At intervals it does. The hue 
and cry accumulates, and grows so great at last that the 
Nine protect themselves by letting ever such a little 
knowledge pass out into the hands of the enemy. They 
try to use it, and they die. There was Sennacherib—you 
have heard of him and his army of Assyrians? I could 
cite you fifty instances from history, and for every one 
such there are a thousand that men never heard of.” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


281 


“Then you mean, your Nine masters preserve their 
precious secrets merely for their own protection ?" Cy¬ 
prian demanded. 

Mention of Sennacherib's army and other Old Testa¬ 
ment victims of imponderable forces roused him like a 
watch-dog guarding against trespassers. That was his 
field. 

“No, but they protect the secrets, and the secrets 
them," Ghandava answered. “I will show you why. If 
one of you will open the big album on that small table by 
the door you will find in it more than ten thousand news¬ 
paper clippings in more than twenty languages, every one 
of which is a direct statement of what the nations are 
preparing to do in the next war. You will see mention of 
gases that will decimate whole cities in an hour; or sub¬ 
marines that will render the seas not navigable, and so 
starve peoples; of airplanes carrying two-ton bombs 
loaded with such poison as will penetrate all known sub¬ 
stances and kill men in agony; of guns with a range 
exceeding a hundred miles; of newly discovered methods 
of vibration that will shake whole cities into ruins; and 
of many other things, some even worse than those. 

“The forces that the Nine Unknown can use are in¬ 
finitely greater than any those war-devising idiots have 
dreamt of! Shall they trust their secret to the daily 
press? And shall they not defend themselves and their 
secret against the ambitious rogues who stop at nothing 
to possess themselves of what, if they had it, would put 
the whole world at their mercy? And they have no 
mercy, you know," he added reminiscently, as if he had 
investigated and could bear true witness. 

“Then you're asking us to track down the enemy so 


282 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


that you may pounce on him? It that it?” asked 
Eamsden. 

“My friend, I ask nothing!” Ghandava answered, 
leaning forward, laying both hands on his thighs for em¬ 
phasis. “Those who have commissioned me, forever give 
without exacting or accepting a return.” 

Narayan Singh nodded gravely. 

“Sahib” he said, “that is a true speech. That is how 
a man may know that he deals with the Buddhas* and not 
with rogues. They give, because they will give, and ask 
nothing because none can recompense them.” 

Cyprian snorted. 

“How about the gold then—the gold they hoard like 
misers ?” 

“Did you ever part with gold to them?” Ghandava 
answered, with the first hint of tartness he had allowed 
to escape him. 

Then, as if regretting that lapse, he crossed the floor 
and laid a hand on Cyprian’s on the chair-arm. 

“My old friend, I will never harm you—never!” he 
said quietly. “You would like to rid the world of certain 
knowledge—or rather of the possibility of learning it, for 
the world is ignorant of its very nature. Well, those who 
have commissioned me are just as careful to keep that 
knowledge hidden. The difference is that we preserve it 
—you would burn it—that is all. There is no chance of 
its becoming known. But if you will be patient you shall 
glimpse what might happen if even a millionth part of the 
knowledge were made known to men not ready for it. 
You shall see a wonder, and then guess, if you will, what 
Caesar—who crucified a million Spaniards simply because 

*The word is best known as the title of the Lord Gautama 
or Buddha. It means “the enlightened.” 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


283 


he had the power and the inclination—would have done 
with poison gas! Thereafter, consider what the world 
to-day would do with even one of the secrets kept by 
those whom you have heard of as The Nine Unknown!” 

Cyprian’s eyes were not dry, but a strong light came 
through the window; he pretended it was that. His lips 
moved silently. Then— 

“I will burn all their books I can find!” he said in 
eighty-year falsetto. 

“All you can find,” Ghandava answered, smiling. 

“I will not go to Benares,” Cyprian announced. 

He was trembling violently. He looked almost in¬ 
capable of going home. 

“Stay in my house. Search my library for forbidden 
volumes!” Ghandava urged him. 

Cyprian stood up, steadying himself on Jeremy’s arm, 
then brushing Jeremy aside. 

“These shall go!” he said. “To Benares! They shall 
go—and shall see. And if they see books, they shall bring 
them—bring them back—back to me. I will burn what 
they bring! Ghandava says he makes no demands. 
These made me a promise. All the books they find are 
mine to do with as I please!” 

He looked about him, as if expecting to be contra¬ 
dicted. But it was true, they had made that promise. 
None answered. 

“Now, make whatever plans you like!” said Cyprian, 
sitting down. 

Jeff was still pondering the same perplexity, revolv¬ 
ing it and overturning all the possibilities to find what lay 
beneath, just as he would have explored a mineral 
prospect. 

“I don’t understand yet,” he objected, thrusting his 


284 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


lower jaw forward, meaning to understand if it took all 
day. “You ask nothing from us? You ask us to go to 
Benares, don’t you?” 

“No,” Ghandava answered. “You were going to 
Benares.” 

“What do you want us to do when we get there?” 
Jeff demanded. 

“Nothing!” said Ghandava. “Yet your purpose was 
—in going there—I think—to get in touch with and to 
undo—will the word serve?—then to undo an organiza¬ 
tion calling itself the Nine Unknown. I have offered to 
help.” 

“You say that it isn't the Nine Unknown,” Jeff ob¬ 
jected. 

“Are you less intent on that account?” Ghandava 
asked. “When you came this morning you were anxious 
for an issue with your enemy. You have felt the teeth 
and talons of the underlings. You asked me for help in 
discovering the captains. I will help.” 

“You propose to take advantage of us?” Jeff sug¬ 
gested. But his smile withdrew the sting. 

“No more than you of me,” Ghandava answered. 
“We go the same way. Let us march together. There 
will never be a stage of the proceedings at which you are 
not at liberty to withdraw.” 

“Accept that!” ordered Cyprian, pursing his lips up, 
nearly rising to his feet again, and sitting down. 

They accepted, one by one, each meeting Ghandava’s 
gaze and nodding. That was the nearest they came to a 
pledge at any time. 

“And, now,” Ghandava said, “we may as well bring in 
the prisoner again.” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


285 


Almost before the last word left Ghandava’s lips 
Chullunder Ghose squealed delightedly. Ghandava rang 
no bell. No gong announced his pleasure. Yet, exactly 
as he gave the wish expression the door at the end of the 
room opened wide and the green-lined chela entered, lead¬ 
ing the prisoner as easily as a farm-hand leads a bull. 

“Did you see that ? Sahibs , did you notice-” 

King prodded the babu into breathless silence. The 
prisoner turned with his back to the window and faced 
Ghandava, who observed him like a professor of entomo¬ 
logy considering a wasp, not unkindly, almost with fa¬ 
miliarity, wholly curious. The bronze man seemed no 
longer to be hypnotized. 

“What shall be done with you ?” Ghandava asked. 

The prisoner smiled loathsomely—a brute unable to 
see plain motives. “You can do nothing with me! Your 
law is you may not shed blood/’ he answered. 

“If I let you go, will you let these friends of mine go 
in peace to Benares ?” 

The bronze man hesitated. Then a smile of evil cun¬ 
ning added to the coarseness of his lips, and he drew him¬ 
self up with an effort to seem princely. 

“Yes,” he said in Hindi—arrogant, according favors. 
“That is granted.” 

“Go then!” said Ghandava; and the green-lined chela 
led the giant out. 

“Sleep now. You all need sleep,” Ghandava said, and 
none, not even Cyprian, objected when he showed them 
to cool rooms within thick walls where silence and soft 
mattresses held promise of delight. They all slept, saving 
Grim, who lay awake and thought of Ali of Sikunderam 
alone in the office with a prisoner. 



CHAPTER XVII 


"THERE WILL BE NO WITNESSES-SAY THAT AND 

STICK TO IT!" 

NITY is the profoundest law. Man, attempting lit¬ 



tle bush-league innovations imitates unconsciously 


the Infinite. So the custom is the same in Naples, or Pal¬ 
ermo, or Chicago—Pekin—Delhi—Teheran—Jerusalem 
—who wages a vendetta does so on his own account, at 
his own risk, and he recognizes no higher law than his 
own will. 

Police—all governments—are off-side—enemies in 
common, whom foes should unite to defeat. Whoso calls 
in the police is despicable in the eyes of friend and enemy 


alike. 


And there is another rule, almost universal through¬ 
out nature. The unusual, the unexpected, the unconven¬ 
tional are fighting cues. The sparrow with white feath¬ 
ers, the man with new ideas, the fellow whose weapons 


286 




THE NINE UNKNOWN 


287 


are not en regie, alike must meet intense resentment. 
Fists in a land where daggers are the rule, are more here¬ 
tical than ragtime in a synod. Heresy is provocation. 

So there came to Ali of Sikunderam, in the office up 
the alley in the Chandni Chowk, a woman—veiled. Men 
say that was nothing exceptional in his experience. Seven 
sons by seven mothers are excuse for that witticism on 
which slander feeds, and scandal is self-multiplying—very 
breath in the nostrils of the scandalized. Nevertheless, it 
was nothing unusual for a veiled woman to be seen in 
that neighborhood. Scores—hundreds of them threaded 
the alley daily. None paid attention to this one as she 
climbed the crowded stairs, although that may have been 
partly because observant eyes—and in India all eyes are 
observant—might have noticed that several men in rather 
dingy yellow robes were watching her possessively from 
up and down the alley. No wise man insists on trouble 
in such circumstances. 

She was veiled when she knocked at the office door. 
But the instant Ali opened she threw back the veil, as if 
she knew whom she would find in there and what means 
was the best for holding his attention. Certainly she 
seized it on the instant. 

“Queen of all pearls! Pearl among queens !” he said, 
staring at her. 

She being alone, and he well armed, there was nothing 
about her that he needed to fear; and there was much he 
found no difficulty in admiring. 

She was full-lipped, heavy-breasted, and her long, 
black, oily hair was coiled in thick ropes that resembled 
snakes. She had full, bold eyes like Gauri’s, whom Ali 
had thought of honoring with his feudal attentions until 


288 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


her house was burned, which made her not worth while. 
And she wore the same air of worldly wisdom and of tol¬ 
erance for the world’s too-little virtue that had made of 
Gauri such an easy lady to hold converse with. She was 
Gauri’s size—height—so like Gauri that the floors of 
memory swept Ali’s caution out from under him. But her 
golden ornaments were heavier than Gauri’s. The emer¬ 
alds in her ears were worth as much as all of Gauri’s for¬ 
tune before da Gama looted her. And in one other as¬ 
pect she was noticeably different. 

There was a swelling under her left jaw that looked 
almost like the mumps, only it was more inflamed and 
discolored. Some one or something had struck her, not 
only recently but terrifically hard. 

“Queen of the queens of Paradise, who hit thee?” he 
demanded. 

He spoke tenderly—for him; but the Asian ardor 
blazed behind his eyes, and no woman not on adventure 
bent would have faced him without blenching. Ali, how¬ 
ever, did not consider that. Men think less alertly after 
going long without sleep. 

“Am I in paradise?” he asked. “Art thou a houri?” 

She smiled at him. It may be that the smile cost 
agonies, on account of the swollen jaw, but she answered 
in a soft, low voice that thrilled with the suggestion of 
mystery, speaking—marvel of all marvels!—in his own 
tongue, the guttural, hoarse Pushtu of Sikunderam. 

“Prince of princes! Captain of the thousands!” 

Perfect! That is exactly the way to speak to a North¬ 
ern gentleman. Ali stroked his beard and rearranged the 
riding-angle of his Khyber knife. 

“Djereemee-Rass sahib, King sahib, Jimgrim sahib, 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


289 


Ramsden sahib, all send greeting. With the sons of 
queens, who call thee sire, your honor’s honor should fol¬ 
low me to a certain place.” 

She smiled again, and Ali stroked his beard until it 
shone under his hand as if from brushing. 

“Who struck thee ?” he demanded for the second time. 

“A man in the street—a badmash *—a man in yellow 
—one of those who worship Kali,” she answered. 

Ali hesitated. Natural suspicion stirred a naturally 
shrewd wit, and memory, on the verge of sleep, awoke 
with one of those starts that bring the recent panorama of 
events in a flash before the mind. That set him thinking. 
She had asked him to bring his sons; therefore they had 
not been waylaid yet. She had a tiny spot of crimson on 
her forehead, where the caste-mark of the Kali sect had 
been recently rubbed out. She, if one of the enemy, 
might know the names of all the white men in the party, 
because of the five-pound note in da Gama’s hat-band, 
signed by Jeremy, and the sheet of paper in da Gama’s 
pocket on which the Portuguese had jotted down terms— 
and undoubtedly names. Ali added those circumstances 
up and multiplied the total into certainty: She sought to 
decoy him in order to force from him news of his friends’ 
plans and present whereabouts. 

“Queen of cockatrices!” he spat out suddenly, and 
slapped her with his flat hand over the jaw where the 
swelling was. 

He slapped as he augured, shrewdly. Pain was so 
sudden and intense that for a minute she could not 
scream, but lay on the office floor holding both hands to 
her face and rocking herself. He stooped over her, ac- 


*Low-down scoundrel. 



290 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


cording to his own account to feel for weapons, but made 
a commencement by twitching at an emerald ear-stud, and 
the speed with which she drew a dagger then was swifter 
than a snake’s. He sprang clear, avoiding her upward 
stab by the width of the goose-flesh on his belly. 

“Mother of corruption!” 

She had had her chance and lost it. Whipping out his 
long knife he knocked her dagger spinning, and with his 
teeth showing clean as a hound’s in a battle-laugh between 
the gray-shot black of beard and upper-lip he set one foot 
on her and pressed her to the floor. 

“Mother of evil tidings! What ill-omen brought 
thee ? Speak!” 

But she would not speak, although he showed his 
swordmanship, whirling his blade until it whistled within 
an inch of her defiant eyes. And from that he drew his 
own conclusions. 

“So! Not alone? An escort waits—too far away to 
hear screams—but will come unless the she-decoy returns 
in time. Hah!” 

He removed his foot from between her breasts and 
she raised herself with a hand on the floor, but he kicked 
her under the injured jaw again and with the same toe 
sent her floundering behind the desk, where the prisoner 
in yellow lay. 

Suddenly then it occurred to him that she and the 
prisoner should not hold intercourse. It only takes a 
second for the East to tell the East the news. He pounced 
on her again and dragging her away, flung her across 
the room, bending then over the man in yellow to make 
sure his bonds were taut and cursing him for having 
dared to see what he could not help seeing. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


291 


“Allah! If I were a hard man I would tear thy 
tongue out to save talk! Luckily for thee my heart is 
wax. I am a man of mercy.” 

He repaid attention to the woman then, and it was 
time; she was creeping along the wall toward the door. 
He seized her by one foot and, she kicking like a caught 
fish, pulled her back to the farthest corner, where he tied 
her hand and foot with thin string meant for wrapping 
parcels, using the best part of a ball of the stuff, for Ali 
was no sailor. 

The rest of his task was simple enough—and satisfy¬ 
ing. He removed the emeralds from her ears, the gold 
from her neck, wrists and ankles, and every one of the 
jeweled brooches that fastened her outer garments. 

She called him a pig of an Afghan for that, and he 
was in the act of gagging her by way of reprisal when 
another knock sounded on the office door. 

He knew it was none of his sons. They had their 
own private code of signals. He picked up the only rug 
and heaped it over the woman to conceal her. 

“Mother of a murrain!” he growled in Pushtu. “Does 
death tempt you? If so, make one sound, and die thus!” 

In pantomime he showed how a Khyber knife goes in 
below the stomach and rips upward. Then he arranged 
the rug over her and turned to face the door. 

“Open!” commanded some one—a stranger with a 
strange voice, speaking Hindu. 

There was only one voice. He could only hear one 
man shifting his feet restlessly. He could not see through 
the frosted-glass panel of the door, nor through the key¬ 
hole for the key was in it. 

“Who are you?” he demanded. 


292 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“A messenger. The sahib's sons have sent me.” 

That was an obvious lie. The sons of Ali of Sikun- 
deram knew better than to instruct their furious sire by 
deputy. 

“How many of you ?” he demanded. 

“One.” 

But he suspected, and suspicion was unthinkable 
without its concrete consequence, with Ali’s nerves in 
that state. He struck the glass panel with his knife-point 
and as the glass broke clapped his eye to it. 

He could only see one man—a fellow in a yellow 
smock, apparently unarmed. He, too, used the broken 
(pane to get a glimpse of Ali. He used it to good purpose. 
Drawing back suddenly he thrust a long stick through 
with such force that it drove Ali back on his heels and 
sent him reeling against the desk. And before he could 
recover a lean hand beneath a yellow sleeve inserted itself 
through the broken pane and turned the key. One man 
walked in, followed by five others, the last of whom 
closed the door behind him and stood with his back 
against the broken glass. 

“Be swift!” said the first man. “Two belonging to us 
are here. A woman and a man. Where ?” 

But six to one, though odds enough, were no conclu¬ 
sive argument to Ali of Sikunderam. And there are few, 
who have not seen it, who are able to imagine the swift¬ 
ness and the spring-steel savagery of the North at bay. 
All six drew knives from under their smocks, but all too 
late—Ali had laid out two of them, gutted and writhing 
in their own hot bowels, before he had as much as to 
guard himself. And as the third man advanced with a 
jump to engage, the sixth screamed; some one in the pas- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


293 


sage thrust a long knife through the broken glass and 
pierced him through the kidneys from behind. 

The reserves had come! Now three men had to deal 
with Ali and with six of Ali’s sons! 

But they were three stern fighters, and they, too, had 
reenforcement. 

She on the floor, whom Ali had struck and kicked and 
covered up, struggled—only ifrits or a sailor could ex¬ 
plain how—from the tight-wound string, and seized a 
knife whose hilt was slippery with the blood of its erst¬ 
while owner. With that she slashed the lashing on her 
ankles, and a yell from one of Ali’s sons warned him in 
the nick of time that she was up on her feet and coming. 

Rahman’s pantomime saved him. Rahman, speech¬ 
less with excitement, ducked as he, too, would have 
ducked if the knife had been swinging at the base of his 
own skull. And Ali imitated, hardly knowing what he 
did, guided more by telepathic instinct than by his reason. 
For the second time the woman’s knife missed him by a 
hair’s breadth. The back of his neck felt seared as if a 
hot iron had almost touched it, so close and so terrific was 
the woman’s lunge. 

But it was her last act, not his. The North’s retort 
discourteous is quicker than the wild boar’s jink and rip. 
The impulse brought her stumbling against his back and 
he threw her with the “chuck” they boast in Cornwall— 
over his shoulders, forward—caught her as she fell— 
thrust her like a shield with his left hand into an oppo¬ 
nent, driving the long knife with his right into her body 
three times—and then slew the man behind her with a 
downward blow that split his skull midway to the mouth. 
The knife stuck in the tough bone. The men in yellow 


294 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


rushed him, taken in the rear themselves by Rahman and 
the*other sons. Ali let go the Khyber knife and drew his 
dagger; and from that moment there was no more hope 
or thought of quarter—no hope for whichever side was 
weaker, unless interruption came. And the odds were 
five to two, for two of Ali’s sons were down. 

And who should trespass into other men’s disputes in 
Delhi, in these days of non-cooperation and distrust? A 
man might yell for help the day long, and no more than 
tire his lungs. There is trouble without wooing it, and 
he who starts a fight may finish it counting on no inter¬ 
ference from strangers. 

Now the office was a shambles—blood and bowels on 
the floor—loose-limbed dead men yielding this and that 
way to the kicks of the frenzied living—grunts—low, ex¬ 
plosive oaths—the sudden, sullen, lightning thrust and 
parry as the daggers struck or missed—no shouting now 
—no breath for it—the stink of raw blood and the elec¬ 
tric thrill of death’s wings—thumping of feet growing 
fewer. No beasts fight as evilly as men. 

Three of Ali’s sons, including Rahman bled to death 
on the office floor while their sire raged like a typhoon 
over them, working with a dagger for room and time in 
which to free the long knife from his victim’s skull. And 
then with a foot on the skull and a wrench he had it. So, 
not neatly, as Narayan Singh would have slain, but 
roughly like the butchers who cleave meat in a hurry as 
it hangs, he hacked the two remaining Kali-men to death, 
saving three sons—one so badly wounded that his only 
chance was in the hospital. 

‘'And so what?” he demanded, questioning Allah it 
might be as he wiped his reeking blade on a victim’s 
smock. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


295 


The two whole sons asked nothing, but proceeded to 
the looting, one stripping his dead brothers first of every 
valuable thing and the other naturally picking out the 
woman. Ali laughed at him. 

“Fool! Am I brainless? Should I tie her and not 
scratch ?” 

He had no more breath for words. Disgust at losing 
three, it might be four sons in such a mean fight half- 
unmanned him. With a gesture he ordered the woman 
thrown under the rug again where he himself had hidden 
her, and the son obeyed. He did not really know why he 
ordered that. He was hardly thinking. Rather he was 
looking about him for a bandage for his son’s wounds. 
Suddenly he thought that if he left the wounded son 
there, as he must, the presence of the woman’s body might 
make lying difficult; and Ahmed would have to lie like 
history or else say nothing when relief should come. Ly¬ 
ing is much the easier of those alternatives, to a man born 
north of where the Jumna bends by Dera Ghazi Khan. 

“Take her out! Cover her in that!” he ordered; and 
the prisoner behind the desk, hearing but not seeing, 
made a mental note of it. 

He heard, too, the grunting and heavy footsteps as 
the two uninjured sons picked up the rug with the wom¬ 
an’s body and carried it out to be dumped in the unused 
cellar where rats would eat it, and whoever found bones 
might conjecture what he pleased. 

Then Ali, bandaging his wounded son as carefully as 
circumstance permitted, gave him water and forbidden 
whisky from the office gallon jar, and bade him sit there 
with his back propped in a corner until some one should 
come from the Moslem hospital—to whom he should lie 
like a gentleman. 


296 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“These men in yellow came—broke in—found me and 
my brothers—attacked us murderously—and were slain 
by me, Ahmed son of Ali ben Ali of Sikunderam. I 
know not why they came, nor who they are.” 

That was the lie, and surely good enough for a man at 
death’s door, in a land where a trial may take a year 
awaiting. 

“There will be no witnesses: Say that and stick to 
it!” said Ali. “Beg of the Wakf for proper burial for 
thy brothers and, it may be, also for thyself!” 

Then he gagged and blindfolded his prisoner, re¬ 
leased his legs and hurried him out between the two un¬ 
injured sons through the door at the end of the passage 
into the warehouse, where all was gloom among the bales 
and none asked questions in any event. Thence he sent 
one son running to find a man, whose word was good 
with the Moslem hospital, and sat down on a bale of aloes 
to consider. 

The problem was how now to get in touch with King, 
Grim, Jeremy and Ramsden. He was not afraid of being 
caught, because only his friends had keys to the ware¬ 
house door, nor afraid of consequences if he should be 
caught, since in a land of lies, who lies the best is king. 
Dead men are not efficient witnesses, and Ahmed had 
been well trained. But the prisoner was an embarrass¬ 
ment, and he did not care to dispose of him without in¬ 
structions. 

He removed the stuffy blindfold from the prisoner, 
not from merciful but mercenary reasons. The drugs in 
the bales all about them were pungent and exceeding dry. 
He had a thought, that became him as soldier of fortune. 

“Are you thirsty ?” it occurred to him to ask. 

Unwilling to admit it, for he guessed the motive, the 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


297 


prisoner shook his head. Ali gravely doubted him. He 
sought a bale of capsicum, and pulling loose a handful 
crushed the stuff to powder under the prisoner’s nose. If 
he had not been thirsty previous to that, his condition 
now was indisputable. 

“You shall drink when you tell me where my friends 
are!” he said bluntly. 

“I don’t know that,” the prisoner answered. 

“By Allah, but you do! You saw the fellow with the 
green-lined cloak, who took my friends the sahibs and the 
Sikh away with him. You recognized him, for I saw 
your eyes. Tell me where he lives.” 

The prisoner coughed up most of the torturing dust. 

“I will tell you when you tell me what you did with 
HER,” he answered, the water running from his eyes. 
“Where have you hidden her ?” 

“I killed her,” Ali answered, so promptly and frankly 
that the prisoner was sure he lied. 

“Let me speak with HER, and I will tell you anything 
you want to know,” he answered. 

“Answer my question. Moreover write an order for 
a thousand rupees payable to my son, who will collect the 
money and bring water back with him. Then you shall 
drink,” said Ali; and having thrown more dust of cap¬ 
sicum into the prisoner’s lips and nostrils, he settled down 
to bide his time and meditate. 

Sleep was overtaking him again. He had to wrestle 
with his senses. Thoughts shaded into one another, and 
the outlines blurred until a half-dream and a fact were 
indistinguishable. He could not guess what capital to 
make of the prisoner’s belief that SHE—whoever she was 
—was still living. He had slain her, that was sure. 

The prisoner wished to speak with her, that was also 


298 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


sure. Ergo, she meant something to the prisoner; but 
what? And what might it all mean to his friends the 
sahibs? Ali was forever thoughtful for his friends, when 
his own immediate and perhaps prospective needs had had 
attention. How he wished he had brains like Jimgrim 
sahib, or King sahib's experienced wisdom, or Jeremy sa¬ 
hib’s swift intuition, or even the ability to grind an an¬ 
swer out as Rammy sahib did, seeming to compel his 
intellect to work by brute force! He tried that, but solu¬ 
tions would not come. 

He heard his son return and listened dully to the ac¬ 
count of how the ambulance was coming presently. He 
heard the ambulance arrive, as in a dream, and heard the 
tramping and excited comments of the men, who found 
all those corpses and one unconscious Hillman in the of¬ 
fice, and were suitably impressed. He heard the tramping 
and the voices die away, and later, as the heat increased, 
sent one of his two sons for water, which he drank in the 
prisoner’s presence. Then, giving orders to his sons to 
increase the prisoner’s thirst by all means possible, he fell 
asleep and dreamed, according to his own account of it, 
of emeralds and wild-eyed women and of a great high- 
priest who came and blessed him, making signs in the air 
as he did so with an unsheathed Khyber knife. 

He awoke with a start, and stared into a strange face! 

“Is this he ?” a quiet voice asked, and then he heard a 
voice he would have known in any crowd as Jimgrim’s: 

“Sure. Say, Ali? What did you keep the prisoner 
dry for ? And what does the locked-up office and broken 
glass mean? Bhima Ghandava sahib and I have had to 
come the back way because of a police guard on the stairs 
and in the passage. Why ?” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


299 


Ali explained and, drawing the two aside, told partly 
why he gave the prisoner no drink. 

“He believes SHE still lives,'” he added, wondering 
what Grim would make of it. 

Grim glanced at Ghandava. 

“Loose him and let him go!” advised Ghandava, al¬ 
most instantly. 

“By gad, sir—by the Big Jim Hill—I do believe 
you’re right!” Grim answered. 

“Ye are mad!—both mad!” said Ali, staring stupidly. 

“Good enough. Let the prisoner go!” commanded 
Grim. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

"he has whatever she had!” 

I T WAS Grim, returning from the Chandni Chowk that 
afternoon, awaking them one by one, who summoned 
another conference in Ghandava’s great, cool library. 
Ghandava had disappeared, but the smell of artful cook¬ 
ery ascended from below-stairs, and the green-lined chela 
kept himself in evidence at intervals, incurious and yet 
alert. He never seemed to listen, nor to keep from lis¬ 
tening, but hovered in and out like a house-mouse busy 
with affairs behind the scenes. Once he was gone for a 
whole hour. 

"Giving my imagination utmost creeps!” as Chullun- 
der Ghose remarked. 

"Ghandava fears only this,” said Grim: "The prison¬ 
er may be too incensed by Ali’s ill-treatment. He was a 
wabbler to start with. You remember, when we caught 
him in the minaret he was flinching from doing murder 
300 






THE NINE UNKNOWN 


301 


in Benares. He’ll return to his superiors, because there’s 
nowhere else for him and he may flop back altogether. 
He’ll say the snake-woman is alive and that we’ve hidden 
her. His murderous instincts may have been so stirred 
up by Ali that he’ll volunteer to identify and kill us all as 
opportunity permits.” 

“Why should Ghandava worry about our getting 
killed?” asked Jeremy, unimpressed. 

“He’s in with us,” said Grim. 

“Where is he?” 

“Gone. Benares!” 

Jeremy whistled. Again he saw adventure coming to 
him on the wing down-wind, and liked it. 

“You see,” said Grim, “they won’t rest while they 
think we’ve got that woman. They’ll not look for her 
corpse while they think she’s alive, and they’ll probably 
try to kill us one by one until we give her up.” 

“Tell ’em she’s dead then, and where to find the 
body,” Jeff suggested. “Where’s Ali and where did he 
hide it?” 

“No!” Grim answered instantly. “Let’s get a woman 
to represent her! Keep them tracking us—you get me? 
Let them think their woman has swapped horses—joined 
us. One man we’ve let go will give them ground for that 
idea. The other—the big one—will tell 'em we’re cahoot- 
ing with the Nine Unknown-” 

“How’ll he know that?” Jeff objected. 

Grim signified the green-lined chela , who had come in 
through one door, apparently to set a book in place, and 
walked out through the other at the rear. 

“He showed him the way out. He told him that,” 
said Grim. 



302 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Oh glorious! Oh exquisite! What ignorant West 
would call ‘Telepathy’!” Chullunder Ghose exclaimed. 
“Mahatma, knowing what outcome of conference will be, 
zvills that chela shall say thisly and do thusly! Krishna! 
This is-” 

“Billiards!” said King, and prodded him in the stom¬ 
ach with the window-pole. 

“I forsee fortune!” Narayan Singh announced. But 
what he means by fortune is the opportunity to use his 
faculties, including swordsmanship. 

“Thou second-sighted butcher!” said the babu. 

“Chup!”* commanded King. 

“You see, it’s this way,” Grim resumed. “Ghandava 
knows how we hit this trail, considers we’re honest, and 
says we’re useful to his employers. We’re helping to put 
the hat on these criminal Nines, whose hour, by his ac¬ 
count of it, has come. He plans to reciprocate. He’ll let 
us see what we started after.” 

“The gold?” demanded Ramsden. 

“So I understand him.” 

“Books! Tut-tut! The books!” said Cyprian, emerg¬ 
ing with a big book in his hands from behind the detached 
case. 

But Grim shook his head. Ghandava had said noth¬ 
ing about showing where the secret books were kept. Cy¬ 
prian shrugged his shoulders, losing interest, and if he 
cared that men had died he did not show it. Probably he 
wanted not to seem to know too much. 

“Where’s Ali ?” Ramsden asked again. 

“Gone with two sons in search of Gauri. She looks 
enough like the woman of the snakes to pass for her in a 


*Shut up! 



THE NINE UNKNOWN 


303 


pinch with the lights turned low. At any rate, she’s our 
lone chance,” Grim answered. 

“Pooh!” said King. “She’ll funk it.” 

“Broke. House burned. Past the bloom of youth. 
Funk nothing!” Grim retorted. “She’ll jump at the hope 
of a lakh of rupees.” 

“Who’ll pay her the lakh?” wondered Jeremy. 

“That was the bargain we made—a lakh in return for 
her help if we find the money.” 

“And if we can’t collect?” 

“Grim, Ramsden and Ross must pay her a solatium.” 

“And if Ali can’t find her?” 

“Then the plan’s down the wind.” 

But it was not, although Ali came within the hour and 
swore that neither he nor either of his sons could find the 
woman. 

“She is doubtless already in the household of a priest,” 
he swore resentfully. “I could have scared the fool! By 
Allah! She would have obeyed if I had found her!” 

“Oh, my God! Hinc illae lacrimae!” remarked the 
babu, voicing the collective gloom. “We get a mental 
glimpse of gold and lo, it vanishes physically with the veil 
of an immodest woman!” 

But they were reckoning again without the green-lined 
chela. Fastidious, ascetic, handsome, one would have se¬ 
lected him no more than a church verger to know Gauri’s 
whereabouts. Yet he came in smiling—said they should 
be getting ready—and offered to find Gauri soon enough. 

“For I have means within means,” he explained, with¬ 
out explaining. 

“Get me a carriage. Send me home!” commanded 
Cyprian. 


304 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


B’ut that was vetoed instantly. The battle in the office 
was as sure to cause investigation as a fire does heat. Cy¬ 
prian might have been seen passing in and out on sev¬ 
eral occasions, and if inquiry should lead to his house 
there were the furnace and the ashes of burned books to 
excite suspicion further. 

“Stay here, Pop, until we come back from Benares, or 
our bargain’s off!” said Jeremy. 

“You mean—you mean?” 

“If you leave this house before we return, and we find 
books, we’ll keep ’em!” 

“Take the padr e-sahib with us!” urged Narayan 
Singh. “He is old and little. Somewhere we can hide 
him.” 

Behind the old priest’s back the green-lined chela 
shook his head, disparagingly. But there was no need. 
Cyprian, loaded down with more than weight for age, 
would have refused that anyhow. Nor did his empty 
nest, with its secret squirrel-horde of books gone, attract 
him any more than the prospect of answering awkward 
questions. There would be no servant—no tidings—none 
of the associations that had made the place worth while. 

“I will stay here,” he said simply, and returned, black 
book in hand, behind the bookcase. 

Then came the game of getting ready. Little, little 
details are the nemesis of dams, designs and men. They 
had to think of all the details of manner and habit, and 
they ended up by lamp-light, weary, with the green-lined 
chela looking on. Then, after supper in the room below, 
it was all to do over, for Gauri came with her maid and 
drilled them, while Ali snored and dreamed of vengeance 
on every man in India who had worn, did wear, or ever 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


305 


should wear a yellow smock; and it happened thus that 
their edifice of make-believe was crowned—pluperfect. 

For Gauri was a pauper. Shabby clothes were all she 
had, so she and the maid, whose lack of fortune was in¬ 
volved in hers, were as sharp-eyed and hungry for a 
chance as adjutants* at dawn. 

“How did you come here ?” Ramsden wondered, when 
they paused between rehearsals. 

Gauri glanced at the snoring Ali, shuddered at his 
long knife, and explained: 

“They said he—that one—looked for me. I was 
afraid. His knife is his god. Better trust one who wor¬ 
ships his belly. Better trust Chullunder Ghose! I ran 
and hid. But another in a green-lined cloak came, saying 
Ali wanted me in behalf of a sahib in the Street of Shah 
Jihan. One who overheard him told me, and I went to 
see. There a man with a caste-mark such as I never saw 
met me and brought me hither. That is how I came. 
Now—ye say Ali slew that woman whom ye wish me to 
resemble? Slew her without witnesses?” 

They nodded, waiting. Something was in the wind, 
for her eyes shone. 

“Pay me for my services whatever jewelry she had!” 

“But—” Jeff Ramsden’s thoughts were a bar behind 
the rest as usual. 

She interrupted him. 

“He has whatever she had,” she said simply. 

She had cast her die, and she was a gambler heart and 
soul. Nothing—no argument could change her once the 
stakes were down; and she had named the stakes—her 
neck against whatever Ali’s loot amounted to! 


*An enormous bird protected in India as a scavenger. 



306 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


So Ali had to wake up, she protesting that the best 
way would have been to loot him while he slept. Grim 
did the explaining, taking all for granted, to save time. 

“Ali, there is an argument. You settle it. One says, 
whoever finds this gold should have the whole of it; the 
others, that all should share and share in any case. What 
say you?” 

And if the North loves one thing it is playing Solo¬ 
mon, pronouncing wise decisions, justice in the abstract 
being one thing and according it another. 

“We being friends,” said he, “what injures one is in¬ 
jury to all; and by Allah, what profits one should profit 
all of us. So we should share and share alike.” 

Grim looked disappointed—subtlest flattery! 

“Then if I alone should of my own skill win a treas¬ 
ure, should you share that ?” he demanded. 

“By the Prophet of Allah, why not?” Ali answered, 
delighted to have Jimgrim on the hip. “Whatever any of 
us finds while our agreement lasts belongs to all, to be 
shared between us.” 

Grim might have jumped him then, but Grim was 
wise. 

“Then could the vote of all of us dispose of the dis¬ 
covery of one?” 

“Why certainly, by Allah, yes!” said Ali. “Was that 
not agreed in the beginning?” 

“Then let us vote on this,” said Grim: “Gauri offers 
her service for the jewels you took from the woman you 
slew in the office! Some one should propose a motion! 
Let us see the jewels anyhow.” 

Trapped—aware that he was trapped, and on the 
horns of his own verdict—Ali looked about him; for the 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


307 


East may not be made to hurry even in dilemma, having 
earned that right by studying dignity for thirty thousand 
years. He had two sons. Conceivably he might tempt 
Chullunder Ghose, or threaten him, and cast four votes. 
Omitting Cyprian, who might, or might not vote, that left 
the odds five to four against him, for he knew Narayan 
Singh would side with his Western friends, and there was 
no doubt in his mind whatever what they would do. 

He might refuse to show the loot. He might walk 
out, explaining he would think the matter over, and nat¬ 
urally not return. He who had lost so many sons had a 
right to consider himself—to recompense himself as best 
he could. Yet he was not quite sure of the value of his 
loot. The gold was heavy enough, but the ear-studs 
might be glass. In the long, long pause that followed 
Grim’s question he even considered the thought of be¬ 
trayal—for he was born north of Peshawar, where trea¬ 
son and a joke are one. But he knew that if he went to 
the police, then he would have to do his own explaining 
of perplexing matters that were best let lie. Moreover, 
the police might—nay, would search him. 

And the men he faced were men. In his own storm- 
tempered, hillman way he loved them. 

“It was knowing that myself must first comply with 
the decision, that I answered as I did,” he said with dig¬ 
nity, hitching to the front beneath his shirt the leather- 
pouch in which he carried his own secrets. “Lo, I set 
example. Look! By Allah, let none say Ali of Sikun- 
deram fell short of an agreement!” 

Handful after handful he pulled out the necklace— 
little golden human skulls on a string of golden human 
hair—the bracelets—the anklets—the brooches—and the 


308 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


earrings last. He tossed the earrings into the midst of 
the heap, half-hoping none would notice them; but by the 
light he saw in Gauri’s eyes he knew that whether they 
were glass or not they, too, were gone for just so much of 
the forever as a woman could withstand his siege. 

“Lo, I have given five sons and now this !” he said 
with dignity. “As Allah is my witness, I give, knowing 
there is recompense.” 

“Some one should make a motion,” Grim repeated. 

“What I give is given,” said Ali, gesturing magnifi¬ 
cently. “I will not vote.” 

Ramsden picked the necklace up and weighed it in his 
hand. 

“This ought to be enough alone,” he said. “It’s worth 
about—at least-” 

“No! No! All or nothing!” Gauri screamed, and 
her eyes looked nearly as infernal as the woman’s in the 
temple had done. “See! Look! The ear-studs—Kali’s 
emeralds!—none like them!” Then her voice dropped. 
“I must wear those—all those,” she added, confidently, 
knowing her case was won. “The priestess’ insignia! 
Mine! Keep your lakh of rupees ! I choose these!” 

They agreed, for they had to. Even Ali agreed to it. 
Rut his wintry eyes met hers, and she breathed uneasily 
as she put her head through the ugly golden necklace and 
the maid set the studs through the holes in the lobes of 
her ears. 

“Each emerald a fortune!” the maid whispered. But 
Ali heard it. 

“Aye, a fortune!” he said nodding. “Who should 
grudge a dowry to the queen of cows?” Which was a 
Hindu compliment, intentional, so understood and shud- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


309 


dered at. She knew the North, or rather the freebooting 
blades who came thence. 

“Wear them! Wear them! They become thee!” Ali 
urged her. 

So, with the jewels on and her hair arranged in heavy 
coils, the lady of delights—as Ali called her—looked not 
so unlike the priestess. All she lacked was, as Chullunder 
Ghose assessed it, “just a year or two of education.” 

The worst was that she thought a course of visiting 
from shrine to shrine and making little offerings to gods 
and goddesses in turn, along with favors to the priests, 
entitled her to know it all. Of men she was a shrewd 
enough judge. She could weigh the chance of wrath and 
pick a living in the trough of evil. But of women—save 
such women as herself—she knew scarce anything, and 
that distorted. 

“Self, knowing women too well, can attempt conver¬ 
sion,” said Chullunder Ghose and set to work to try to 
teach her how a priestess, used to the public eye and awe, 
would sit, and stand, and move about, and be. 

Time and again she flung herself to the floor in tan¬ 
trums, cursing the fat babu in the names of the whole 
Hindu Pantheon. Repeatedly he coaxed her back to pa¬ 
tience, helped by the maid, who kept reciting what the 
emeralds were worth—pure music!—music that had 
charms to soothe the Gauri's breast. 

“Even so they tell me chorus girls are taught to act as 
duchesses!” said the babu. “Failing all else shall escape 
to London and start academy of female manners! Watch 
me, Gauri—beautiful Gauri—goddess among women, 
watch me—walk like this!” 

And in spite of stomach big enough for two men. 


310 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


hams that would have graced a Yorkshire hog, and a cos¬ 
tume not intended for solemnities—his turban was pink— 
he walked across the room with perfect grace—Falstaff 
playing Ophelia, surpassing good. 

She imitated him. He sighed. 

‘Thus, sahiba” None had ever called her that. The 
title is for wives of honest husbands, and she softened, 
even to the brink of tears. “You are a queen—a goddess. 
All know it. That is not enough, though. You, you the 
goddess, know it! You are not afraid of what they think. 
You do not want them thus to think. They do so think. 
You blow they think. You are a goddess! Now, Bride 
of the Mountains, walk across the room again.” 

“Aye, Bride of the Mountains!” murmured Ali. 

Chullunder Ghose had meant a pious compliment, for 
one of the names of the Daughter of Himavat, the Bride 
of Siva, Him who sits upon the peaks, is Gauri. But Ali 
misinterpreted, and Gauri understood. The jewelry was 
hers; and she was Ali’s—no escape! She burst into 
tears again, beat on the floor with her fists, had hysterics, 
and obliged the poor babu to start again at the beginning. 

Then the road! Old India by night in yellow smocks 
beneath an amber moon, with an ox-cart following, in 
which the women lay—a two-wheeled, painted cart with 
curtains, driven by the green-lined chela and drawn by 
the same two splendid Guzarati beasts well fed and rested 
in Ghandava’s stable! The ancient gate—the guard, too 
sleepy to make trouble, too respectful to draw curtains, 
and aware of the weight of silver in shut palms—then the 
wide way flowing on forever between shadows so silent 
and drunk with color that the creaking of a wheel alone 
recalled a solid world. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


311 


And Jeremy—drunker than the shadows were! Full 
—flooded—flowing over with delight; the memory of 
wild Arabia awake within him and a whole unknown 
horizon beckoning in moonlight to adventure such as Sin- 
bad knew! He danced. He sang wild Arab songs—as 
suitable as any, since an unknown tongue was all con¬ 
ditions called for. He flicked a long silk handkerchief 
with imitative skill. And the few, afraid night-farers 
drew aside to let the short procession pass. 

Jeff Ramsden, striding like a Viking with a rod across 
his shoulder, meant ostensibly for vicious dogs, a calf like 
Samson’s showing under the yellow smock, and an air of 
ownership. He owned the earth he trod on. Good to see. 

Then King and Grim together, yellow-smocked and 
striding just as silently, more modern, more in keeping 
with the picture and matched, as it were, in the setting by 
Chullunder Ghose, who walked after them without en¬ 
thusiasm, not needing to pretend, except to creed; pink 
turban gone, he, too, was in orange-yellow. 

Then Narayan Singh, in yellow like the rest, a little 
too ostensibly unarmed. The hilt of something swinging 
as he strode was exaggerated by the smock that covered 
it, and his shadow resembled a monster’s. 

Then the cart. Then Ali and his two sons, not pleased 
with playing Hindu, looking like dark spirits of the night 
whom men might well avoid. Wayfarers beg rides in 
India even as in the West, but none did that night. None 
stole a ride. And the multitude, who make it their pro¬ 
fession to extort alms by the ancient processes—who 
watch the highways and by day or dark flock forth like 
bugs to pester—not recognizing innocence, desisted. 

All one night they trudged the highway with the geo* 


312 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


metrical designs of irrigation ditches glinting in the moon¬ 
light all about them; and at dawn they were offered bed 
and board by a Brahman, who called the green-lined 
chela “holy one.” At one end of the garden-compound, of 
which his house formed the front, was a long shelter sub¬ 
divided into stalls, in which he said it was his privilege to 
acquire merit by entertaining pilgrims. He asked no ques¬ 
tions—only offered food and asked a blessing in return— 
so there they slept on string-cots, three to a stall, the 
women-folk remaining in the closed cart, angrily com¬ 
plaining of the heat. 

Then night again and another march, the women, too, 
on foot; for they left the ox-cart with the Brahman—six 
or eight miles’ walk in mellow moonlight to a wayside 
station, where a Hindu station-master said they honored 
his poor roof, and where, by dint of lies along the wire, he 
finally secured a whole reserved compartment for them on 
a through train for Benares. 



CHAPTER XIX 

"once, when they who keep the secrets- ” 

B ENARES! Mother Gunga, who if she would, could 
tell of the birth of half-a-w r orld, lapping the steps 
below the ghats. Crimson fire and leaping flame where 
they cremate the dead. Moonlight on a hundred thousand 
heads and shoulders, as the "heathen” stand breast-deep 
reflected in the stream and pray for blessedness. Built on 
Benares! For the temples that have stood a thousand 
years are crumbling above foundations that were ancient 
cities before Hermes was Hierophant of Mysteries. Troy 
seven times rebuilt on Troy is but a new thing to Benares. 

The train rolled in, panting at the end of awful night; 
and it was no more to Benares than a new bird added to 
the hordes of feathered scavengers. 

Under the hot iron roof the train disgorged its crowd, 
itself impersonal, they seeking abstract bliss—an iron-age 
implement subserving Manu and His laws. It was no 
313 






314 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


more to Benares than the flies that drone around the 
ghats at dawn. 

The green-lined chela led, threading the swarm that 
checked and gathered itself, bleating for its females and 
its young like sheep, demanding neither food nor sleep but 
the view of Mother Gunga and the privilege of plunging 
in at sunrise. 

Gauri and her maid walked beside Chullunder Ghose, 
both veiled. 

“One sees us!” said the babu. “Let the veil fall open.” 

On the journey they had labored over it, cutting and 
stitching until if loosed it fell so perfectly that her face 
could be seen in profile—which was best—and be covered 
again instantly. Gauri saw a man in yellow staring at 
her, and snatched the veil together. 

“He is big, and I am afraid of him!” 

“Good,” said the babu. 

“But he saw I am afraid!” 

“Better! He knows you are not a goddess! You 
should be afraid of him! Now, not knowing, he will go 
and say he knows, same being excellent in politics but no 
good when up against Jimgrim and the green-lined chela 
—latter being devil very likely, though I think not. 
Woman, behave fearfully! He turns again and looks.” 

So Gauri hid behind Chullunder Ghose’s bulk, as if 
she were a merchant's wife out for the first time far from 
home. And the very tall man who had turned and looked 
beckoned another, shorter, nearly naked one, who came 
and followed the party, presently beckoning others to keep 
him company. 

So, though they threaded a score of streets not wider 
than an ox-cart, turning this and that way almost incom- 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


315 


prehensibly like ants, and entered at last a high door in a 
wall, which slammed behind them and was bolted and 
barred by some one in a cabin like a sentry-box, who per¬ 
formed his task unseen, they knew they were not lost to 
knowledge. They could hear the footsteps of the spies, 
who ran to tell their whereabouts to whom it might 
concern. 

And here—in a quiet clean oasis—the green-lined 
chela seemed no longer in authority. He accepted orders 
from a man in white, whose bald, bare head was flesh¬ 
less—skin on bone, as if it had died but still was needed 
by the body. Only his eyes lived, burning, down deep in 
the sockets. It seemed he was host. 

“Introduce us. What’s his name?” Grim asked. 

“No name,” the chela answered. 

Only then they all remembered that the green-lined 
chela , too, had given no name, then or at any time. 

“What’s yours ?” Grim asked him, but he laughed and 
shook his head. 

So, failing introduction, Grim lined up the party, 
named them, and began to speak about Ghandava. That 
name, too apparently meant nothing here. The living 
skeleton in white took no account of it. He turned on his 
heel and led them indoors, into an ancient palace, nowa¬ 
days as plainly furnished as a monastery, and up-stairs to 
the first floor. There, saying nothing, he made a gesture, 
signifying that the floor was theirs and, turning to the 
chela , who had followed, dismissed him with a monosyl¬ 
lable. The chela neither spoke nor displayed the least 
emotion, but turned and went. 

Nevertheless there was an atmosphere of comfort, and 
even of friendliness. The man in white stood waiting by 


316 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


the door until silent servants brought water and a heap of 
clean sheets. Others brought food—bread, vegetables, 
milk—and then, but not till then, the man in white left 
them, not having said one word except to the chela to dis¬ 
miss him, yet contriving to convey the thought that they 
were welcome. 

“And why not welcome ?” wondered Jeremy. “Be¬ 
nares looks to me to need jazzing.” 

“My God!” Chullunder Ghose exploded. 

All the long front of that floor was a veranda, cool 
and deep, facing the Mother of Rivers above ancient 
roofs. They had five separate vistas between temple 
domes, and down one lane of ancientry could see the gran¬ 
ite steps, and thousands of naked men, and women veiled 
in lightest muslin, descending to bathe and pray; for sun¬ 
rise is the holiest hour of all. 

Rafts on the river’s bosom swarmed with Brahmins 
sitting rigid in the act of meditation. Between the rafts 
the stream flowed spread with flowers, because none of 
the thousands had come empty-handed, but with gar¬ 
lands, loose blossoms and plaited strings of buds by way 
of offering. 

The cooing of doves was all about them, and the music 
of temple-bells. The breath of Mother Gunga, who gives 
life and takes it, pervaded all—miasmic say the scientists, 
ignoring truth of a millennium. (They drink the water 
where the ashes of the dead are strewn, and take no 
hurt.) Birds everywhere, especially crows lining the 
ridges of temple roofs with jet black; and down the gran¬ 
ite steps to the river’s brink, between the men’s bare legs 
and over the gaudy garments laid aside, monkeys scam¬ 
pering to drink, unfearful and unnoticed. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


317 


“Good!” said Jeremy, sniffing and filling his lungs. 

Along a street below them caste-less bearers were car¬ 
rying the dead on litters, to be bathed a last time at the 
river brink before being laid out on their funeral pyres. 
None noticed. In Benares it is life that counts, not death, 
and life is of the spirit not the senses. When a pilgrim 
shuffles off his mortal coil they make away with it and 
burn it swiftly, lest it hamper his efforts to climb higher. 

Down another vista lay the ruins of a temple like an 
island in the stream; for centuries ago, when Gunga rose 
in spate, she underswept the walls and rooted in among 
them till the whole enormous building tumbled into the 
flood. Now a naked fakir stood on the highest stone of 
its ruins—young, with long hair on his shoulders—poised 
against the blue sky- 

“Fancy free!” suggested Jeremy. “That lad looks 
happy. Nothing to wear, nor do but stand still! How 
many meals a day, I wonder?” 

“One,” said a voice; and there Ghandava stood, 
among them, unannounced! 

“I have creeps!” remarked Chullunder Ghose. 

He glanced at the door. It was locked on the inside, 
but Ghandava might have done that—only the lock 
squeaked badly, and nobody had heard it. 

“There are three of them. The three are one,” Ghan¬ 
dava went on, taking no notice of the babu’s nervousness. 
“They stand on that stone all day and all night, taking 
turns, relieving one another.” 

“Why?” demanded Jeremy. 

“It always was so,” he answered. “But their vigil is 
nearly ended.” 

Ghandava was bright-eyed; not from opium, that is a 



318 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


feverish glow, but with the light of the ecstasy men earn, 
who by denying self attain self-knowledge. Harder work 
than laying bricks! 

“Why?” demanded Jeremy a second time. 

“Seek, and to every question you shall know the an¬ 
swer, if you seek well enough, my friend,” Ghandava re¬ 
plied. “There are others who seek answers,” he added 
cryptically. 

Whereat Chullunder Ghose recounted how a man in 
yellow had set spies to follow them through the streets. 
Ghandava smiled. 

“You are protected,” he said quietly. “You shall de¬ 
coy them to another place.” 

“For that they may attack us in the other place?” 
Chullunder Ghose asked in consternation. 

“Because their time is come.” 

But Ali of Sikunderam grew angry at answers in the 
shape of conundrums. The Hindu garb and his losses 
fretted him. He paced the floor like a Hillman, which is 
a wholly different stride from any Hindu’s, and rounded 
on Ghandava at the end of a turn—head and shoulders 
over him—his fingers on the hilt of something under¬ 
neath the smock. 

“By Allah, I have paid already more than all these! 
Five sons I have given!” he exclaimed. “Shall my life 
follow theirs without a reason ? Name thy intentions step 
by step, Mahatma-ji!” 

He used the word Mahatma as soldiers of fortune of 
the Middle Ages used the word monk—insultingly, and 
Ghandava, it seemed, knew better than to smile at him. 
An air of patronage might have been a spark to fire the 
tinder of the Hillman’s wrath. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


319 


“Sit down then. I will tell you,” said Ghandava, 
choosing a stool for himself and pausing until all were 
seated on chairs and mats. 

He let it appear that Ali’s protest was what moved 
him, and Ali made sly grimaces at his sons to signify that 
they should learn a lesson in deportment from their sire. 

“Lo, we listen. By Allah, we have ears,” said Ali at 
last importantly. 

“You were seen to arrive in Benares,” Ghandava be¬ 
gan, “because the prisoner you let go from my house in 
Delhi forewarned those who are interested. You were 
seen to have this woman with you, and they are saying 
now that their priestess has wormed her way into your 
confidence, as otherwise she would surely have escaped 
and returned to them. Now, if one of you were to meet 
with one of them, and were not afraid, and should confirm 
that theory, taking an actual message perhaps from Gauri 
to them, using the formula, She says’ -” 

“I am not afraid!” Narayan Singh said, interrupting. 
He stood up, and all who saw him knew he told the truth. 
He was afraid of neither death nor devils. 

Ghandava nodded. 

“I spoke to you all of the Wheel,” he said quietly. 
“The Wheel turns and unless we are alert an opportunity 
is snatched or taken, for us or against us. In a place, 
which you shall see, the Nine have preserved for centu¬ 
ries a truth—knowledge of a truth, that is; for truth is 
like skill, unless used constantly it disappears. The time 
will come, but is not yet, when that truth may be given to 
the world with safety. Those in whose hands the ancient 
secrets are, being human, have made mistakes. Knowl¬ 
edge in the hands of criminals and fools is worse than ig¬ 
norance. Let me illustrate: 



320 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“You have heard of the scientist who, seeking without 
wisdom for the knowledge he could neither weigh nor 
measure, introduced into America a moth that killed the 
trees? So. Once, when they who keep the secrets 
thought the time had come, they entrusted to some chosen 
individuals instruction concerning the scope of man’s 
mind. But the time was not ripe. They who learned 
were faithless and self-seeking, so that from that one 
secret that escaped there sprang the whole evil of witch¬ 
craft, sorcery, necromancy, black magic, hypnotism, what 
is now called ‘mob psychology/ the black art of propo- 
ganda, and inventions that are even worse. 

“Again: Surgeons and doctors know no more anat¬ 
omy than a mechanic knows of alchemy. They who keep 
the secrets once taught certain men the rudiments of what 
was common knowledge long before yEsculapius. Those, 
though, turned the knowledge to their own account, so 
that it died again of selfishness—which is all-destroying; 
and all that remains of the art, that it was sought to heal 
the world with, is the trick by which practitioners of 
Thuggee kill their victims with a silken handkerchief! 

“Chemical dyes mean poison gas. The art of flying, 
which was understood in India ten thousand years ago, 
means bombing of defenseless cities. Alcohol means 
drunkenness. Morphia, which is an anodyne, means vice. 
Only very rarely do the men appear in whose hands 
knowledge may be trusted. Then, and not until then, the 
world goes forward. 

“But those who seek knowledge for selfish ends per¬ 
sist. In that way they are faithful! They seek it like 
prospectors—at times alone, at times in hordes. And be¬ 
cause of the Wheel and the Law, as men unearth gold so 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


321 


these lawless seekers after knowledge draw near at times 
to the discovery. They would discover. They would 
possess themselves of secrets and destroy the world, un¬ 
less they who keep the secrets were alert. 

“Through alertness it is possible to see that they de¬ 
stroy themselves, as the hosts of Korah, Dathan and Abi- 
ram did in your Bible days—as Babylon destroyed itself, 
from too much wealth—as he who discovered gun¬ 
powder destroyed himself; only swiftly, and secretly, lest 
the world learn too much and inquire for more. 

“The lawless Nines who hide under the mask of Kali- 
worship, by elimination and persistence have come near 
to discovering the place where the secret of gold is kept. 
The place must be changed—nay is changed; but lest 
they learn that, they shall be allowed to find the former 
place and to take the consequences. It is there that the 
Wheel turns and you enter in.” 

“How so ?” demanded Ali truculently; but none took 
any notice of him, which seemed to set him thinking on 
his own account. He listened attentively, but with a 
changed expression, while Ghandava went on with his 
story. 

Suddenly Chullunder Ghose threw up his hands in 
consternation. 

“Holy one!” he exclaimed. “Emolument is more 
than pleasing, same is necessary on this plane on which 
we function! Is profit barred ? Is all excluded but the 
risk? Myself am text-book of scientific ignorance and 
not proud, but—family and dependents—impoverished 
babu— verb, sap., Most Holy One!” 

Ghandava chuckled. 

“You shall see, and may help yourself,” he answered. 


322 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“When shall I go with my message to these peo¬ 
ple ?” Narayan Singh asked, standing up again. 

Ramsden rose, too, stretching himself, nearly as tall 
as the Sikh and half-again as heavy—a man to count on 
in tight places. 

“I’ll go with you,” he said quietly, meeting the Sikh’s 
eyes. 

Narayan Singh bowed, smiling a little. It was just 
the smallest inclination of the head, but a whole song set 
to music could never have answered half as much. He 
said no word. They understood each other. 

“When shall we go?” asked Ramsden. 

“When you have seen,” Ghandava answered. “You 
must see; and every word you subsequently say to them 
the woman must say first to you. It is essential that 
these criminals destroy themselves. All you are asked to 
do is to make that simple for them!” 

They ate breakfast all together on the deep veranda, 
Gauri and her maid as anxious as Chullunder Ghose 
about the rules of caste they broke, yet none of the three 
willing to pose as holier than Ghandava, who ate with 
them and had been a “heaven-born” until he abandoned 
caste altogether. Gauri consoled herself with the sight 
of the plundered emeralds. 

“I shall have enough to pay the priests,” she said 
aloud, as if answering the voice of conscience. 

She did not see Ali’s flint eyes blazing, nor the sly, 
secretive acquiescence of his sons; nor did she know 
why, when the meal was done, the sons threw dice on 
the veranda floor. No money passed between them, but 
they threw three times, watching each main breathlessly, 
and he who lost swore acridly in the name of Allah. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


323 


Ghandava watched it all but made no comment, un¬ 
less, about five minutes later as he faced the Ganges, an 
adaptation of two of the Apostle Paul’s most wholesome 
axioms that he let fall had bearing on Ali’s attitude: 

“Since all things work together for our good, and 
now is the appointed time, why not? Shall we be going?” 

He did not say where they were going. They fol¬ 
lowed curiously, both women keeping close to him and 
Ali bringing up the rear with his two sons. It was as 
plain as day that the North was in the mood of those old 
Highlanders who followed Prince Charlie once as far as 
Preston Pans. The rear, where they can do least de¬ 
moralizing, is the right place for those gentry. 

Ghandava led up-stairs—the last way any one ex¬ 
pected—out on to a roof, and up by a winding flight of 
steps that circled about a tower, with a stone curtain on 
their right that rendered them invisible from anywhere 
unless so distant that their heads would be unrecogniz¬ 
able. And then down—through a door at the summit of 
the tower—round and round a circular stairway in the 
tower’s core, with ample air to breathe, but in darkness 
so deep that Ghandava’s reassuring voice seemed to come 
from another world: 

“This way! This way!” 

And the echoes rumbled down into infinity like the 
voice of an underground stream. Ghandava’s spirits 
seemed to rise as they descended. 

Both women screamed at intervals, but there was al¬ 
ways somebody for them to cling to, and the voice of Ali 
behind them proving his own fearlessness—to himself at 
least—by lecturing his sons. 

“A man is a man in the dark! A man is a man in the 


324 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


devil's face! A man dies fighting, and Allah receives 
him into Paradise! Fear is a fool’s religion, sons of 
Ali!” 

“Aye, and the world is full of fools!” Chullunder 
Ghose confessed. “Self being one! Are there snakes?” 

“No snakes!” Ghandava answered. 

“Insects?” 

“None!” 

“Lost souls?” 

“No. They would find no rest here!” 

“We are going down—down!” The babu’s voice 
boomed hollow. “We are surely in Gunga’s womb!” 

“Not yet!” 

“Oh—, where are we then? I hear the rushing of 
waters!” 

“Only air—good air,” Ghandava called back. 

“I hear water boiling!” 

“No, for there is none.” 

The babu’s trepidation served to keep the women 
from hysterics, since he voiced another fear than theirs 
and the two disputed mastery instead of blending into 
panic and hysteria. Guided by Ghandava’s voice and the 
feel of cool, smooth masonry now on one hand, now the 
other, they hurried in single file along a tunnel whose 
floor felt polished under-foot as if a hundred generations 
has passed over it. 

“No bats!” Chullunder Ghose complained. “So there 
must be devils!” 

“No, no devils,” said Ghandava. 

“Krishna! What then? Look! See! I am blind! 
I saw another world! I can not see! I am blinded! 1 
swim in fire! Why do I not burn?” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


325 


They stopped. They had all seen one flash, and then 
nothing but its aching image in the retina—light to which 
a blow-pipe flame would have been gloaming! 

“Watch! Wait!” called Ghandava. 

“Not again! Not again!” cried the babu, and his cry 
re-echoed in imprisoned space—“Again, again, again, 
again, again!” Then the light—three flashes. 

“God!” 

That was King, clapping both hands to eyes that had 
been overstrained on active service. 

“Allah! I saw devils!” (That was Ali.) 

“Holy One, where are we?” (That was the babu.) 

“Under the bed of Ganges!” 

“The fire? Is it Agni?*” 

“Electricity!” said Ramsden, speaking from memory 
of fuses blown out in the wilderness. 

“No.” Ghandava was about to explain, but three 
more blinding flashes interrupted. 

“What then?” asked Ramsden, positive, from mem¬ 
ory. 

“Gold!” fell the answer on breathless silence, in 
which they could all hear Ali and his two sons loosening 
their Khyber knives. 


*The Spirit of Fire. 




CHAPTER XX 


"NEVERTHELESS, I WILL TAKE MY SWORD WITH ME ! V 

PALE-GREEN astral-looking light developed 



gradually, turning the heart of darkness into twi¬ 


light. They discerned the shadowy outlines of a cave 
buttressed with titanic masonry. There were no images, 
no carvings on walls, nor anything to mar simplicity. The 
proportions expressed restful, pure and final peace. 

There was no smell of dampness, although Ghandava 
said they were under the bed of Ganges. There were no 
bats, no filth, no occupants. There was nothing in there 
—in an acre of earth’s foundations—but one square altar 
set against a wall; and thence the light came, seemingly. 

Ghandava led to the altar with no more outward rev¬ 
erence than the vergers use who show the crowds around 
cathedrals. It was of some green substance so like jade 
to the eye that Ramsden, advancing an incautious finger, 
touched it. He drew it back with an oath. 


326 





THE NINE UNKNOWN 


327 


“Pardon! I should have warned you. Are you 
hurt?” Ghandava examined Jeffs finger. “It burns like 
radium.” 

“Oh, buncombe!” said Jeremy, breaking an hour's 
silence. “I've carried gold in my belt for years. My 
belly hasn’t got a mark on it!” 

Every one laughed, even Ali, and the women who 
knew no English. But Ghandava continued as much at 
ease as if he stood before a blackboard. 

“You see?” he said, and pointed to where the wall 
arched over the altar in the shape of a shovel, base to 
the ground, with the apex leaning out above the center of 
the green stone. Exactly in the middle of the arch 
emerged what might have been a pipe of some unrecog¬ 
nizable substance, and for a space of two or three feet 
around it the stone wall seemed to have the consistency 
of pumice, as if its life had been burned out. 

“Hot gold drips from that opening, drops on the stone 
below, and dissipates into electrons!” 

“Hell!” said Jeremy. 

“Men could raise hell with it, couldn’t they!” Ghan¬ 
dava answered. “There is more force in one drop than 
in a box of dynamite—more in a ton of it than in Vesu¬ 
vius!” 

“Who tends it?” asked Jeremy. 

“Those whose turn it is,” Ghandava answered. “They 
are beyond that wall.” 

“Where is the store of gold ?” demanded Ali hoarsely. 

“Gone! Removed!” 

“There can never have been much gold, or who could 
have moved it in haste?” the Hillman sneered, nudging 
his two sons. 


328 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Never more than enough at one time in this place 
than to keep the drops dripping,” Ghandava answered. 
“It has been dripping since long before Atlantis disap¬ 
peared. Calculate it! There is enough in store to con¬ 
tinue the process for as long again. But it must con¬ 
tinue elsewhere. We must find another way of purging 
Gunga.” 

“Riddles! Forever riddles!” Ali grumbled. “Who 
believes a word of all this? Allah—” 

Ghandava interrupted him: 

“Have you ever thought how many thousands bathe 
in Gunga daily? How many dead, who died of sickness, 
are laid on the banks for the stream to wash them ? How 
many drink as they stand waist-deep in Gunga? And 
how few die?” 

“They say it’s the sunlight,” King objected. “Fve 
read that germs of sickness can’t live in Ganges water 
because of the strong sun.” 

“And you believe it?” asked Ghandava. “If so, why 
does the sun not kill germs in the Amazon, or the Congo 
River, or the Jumna or the Irrawaddy?” 

“Damned if I know!” said Grim. “Go on, Ghandava. 
Tell.” 

“Billions of people have drunk Ganges water, since 
the pilgrimages began so long ago that there is no record 
of them. None ever died of drinking it. They have come 
with cholera, and plague, and small-pox. For lack of 
fuel for the pyres they have thrown their dead unburned 
into the stream. And beside the dead they have drunk 
the Ganges water, taking no harm. That is because of 
this.” 

He signified the altar-stone and paused: 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


329 


“Gold is the greatest purifying agent in the universe. 
In the words of the Hermetic Mystery: ‘AS ABOVE, 
SO BELOW/ Gold is thus also the root of every evil. 
Gold, resolved into electrons, is the greatest force avail¬ 
able to men. It is also by the same law men’s greatest 
weakness. Released it could abolish labor, lack, neces¬ 
sity for digging coal—or it could obliterate! There is 
gold enough in the world to usher in the golden age, or 
to wipe out civilization!” 

He paused again dramatically, then added: 

“Nine men know the secret!” 

“The devil they do!” said Jeremy. 

“Many have sought for the secret until a few of them 
know nearly where to look. A week—a month—a year 
and they would find this place. It is wisdom to let them 
find it now. So say those who have commissioned me.” 

“By Allah, I weary of words!” shouted Ali, all his 
patience vanishing into its elements as gold had done. 
His voice reverberated overhead. “Show me as much 
gold as I can bear away, I and my sons, or—” 

In the dim green light he met Narayan Singh’s eyes 
—could not avoid them. The big Sikh leaned and shoved 
a shoulder under his chin, shoving him backward so 
that he could use his right eye only with difficulty; and 
his sons could not have helped their sire without first 
passing King and Grim, with Ramsden on King’s left- 
hand and Grim against the wall. 

“Friend Ali, peace, I pray thee!” said the Sikh. 

There was no alternative. The hilt of something 
underneath the Sikh’s long smock made that fact clear. 

Ghandava looked up at the spout above the green 
altar, listening. He said nothing, but started to walk 


330 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


away, and they followed in a frightened group, the 
women hurrying past him and the men, especially Ali, 
trying to disguise fear by striding measuredly. Chul- 
lunder Ghose gave up that effort. 

“Lo! I claim merit! My share of the gold is a gift 
to Mother Gunga!” he blustered, struggling to the last to 
make a joke of it, and ran. Shoving the women in front 
of him he disappeared into the dark and they could hear 
his heavy footsteps stampeding until the echoing noise 
was swallowed in a tunnel-gurgle sounding like a laugh. 

“The gold is uncontrollable when it begins to drip,” 
Ghandava explained. “The process can be started but 
not stopped. It has been so for a hundred centuries. Not 
even they who keep the secrets could exist inside the 
cavern when the drops fall.” 

As they left the cave a blinding flash burst behind 
them, casting their shadows forward into the tunnel like 
the fragments of shelled infantry. Even so, facing away 
from it, their eyes were hurt. Intellect itself seemed 
stupefied, and was restored by a breath of indrawn air 
that reeked of hot Benares, all decaying flowers, human¬ 
ity and grease. 

“It ventilates the tunnel,” said Ghandava. “That 
air, drawn in, will be burned up in the next explosion.” 

“Where does the product go?” Grim asked him. 

“It is used.” 

“Why doesn’t the explosion burst the cave?” 

“It would, but the quantity is measured.” 

That was all they could extract from him by way of 
information. When they asked more questions he re¬ 
minded them that these were ancient secrets and him¬ 
self no more than a man commissioned for a task. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


331 


“Already you have seen more than uninitiated indi¬ 
viduals ever saw and lived to tell about ” he assured 
them. “And this is only one of very many wonders that 
are done with gold. This is only a trifling matter com¬ 
pared to what can be—what is —done daily.” 

“Then you are an initiate?” asked Grim. But he did 
not answer that. 

Another flash behind them that sent tattered shad¬ 
ows leaping into the dark ahead showed an opening in 
the right-hand wall, set at such an angle and so narrow 
that they had passed it on their way down without being 
aware of its existence. Ghandava led through it now, 
ignoring the babu and the women, who by then were as¬ 
cending the circular stair in the panic that will yield to 
nothing less than daylight. 

“You shall see, because you must say you have seen,” 
he explained, taking Ramsden and Narayan Singh each 
by the arm, as the passage widened and turned back 
nearly in the same direction they had just come. Evi¬ 
dently they had only made a circuit to pass through the 
end wall of the cave. “Say nothing that is not true, even 
to the enemy!” he added. 

And now it felt like entering the workshop where the 
gloaming is woven of green and golden ether. They ap¬ 
proached a cavern—not too close, for he restrained them 
—in which three men watched as if attending looms, only 
that these looms were invisible and the shuttles resem¬ 
bled fish that darted to and fro forever on the same 
course, each swallowing the other as they met. The pale 
green light resembled water—the men, great hooded 
seals—and the silence finished the illusion, so that the ears 
strained for a sound of waves on some imaginary beach. 


332 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


But there was no sound—not even a foot-fall; and of 
gold they saw no more than one bar that a man in a 
hood brought down steps from a gallery hewn overhead. 
Even the steps resembled submarine rocks, and the whole 
illusion was so perfect that they caught themselves not 
breathing, and wondering how long they could stay sub¬ 
merged. 

When Grim started to speak Ghandava held a hand up 
and restrained him. Silence, it seemed, was part of the 
twilight mystery. There was no heat, it was cooler there 
than in the other cave; no light but the dim opalescence 
in which shuttles made of other light swam. Nothing to 
understand. It stripped incomprehension naked and left 
it aware of itself. 

“Come!” said Ghandava. “You have seen a work¬ 
shop older than Benares! You have seen enough!” 

Ali had seen enough to stir cupidity, and it controlled 
him. He brushed by with his hand on his knife-hilt and 
was for plunging into the cavern with his left arm hiding 
his face. The illusion of green water was too real to be 
faced without subconscious precaution of some sort. He 
walked forward with the sidewise pendulum motion of 
one who wades into the surf—threw up both hands sud¬ 
denly—turned—and came hurrying back with eyes and 
tongue protruding. “No air!” he gasped. 

But something else had terrified him—something he 
could not, and never tried to explain. Followed by his 
two sons he took to his heels, pursuing Chullunder Ghose 
and the women up toward daylight; and was first out on 
the summit of the tower with a view of all Benares, in 
spite of the others’ long start, thanks to the legs and the 
wind of a mountaineer. 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


333 


“Behold, who would worship Allah?” asked Narayan 
Singh; and there being no more Moslems there, none 
answered. 

Slowly, with Ghandava in the lead, they returned by 
the tunnel and the steps within the tower, none saying 
much because of breathlessness, nor any climbing better 
than Ghandava, much the eldest, who waited at least a 
dozen times for them to overtake him. Up near the sum¬ 
mit of the tower he opened a door that admitted to a 
gallery with a pierced stone screen around it; and there 
in full sunlight, with eyes aching, and with the sound of 
Ali’s voice arguing above, they squatted down facing 
the Ganges to learn what more Ghandava had in store 
for them. He sat meditating for ten minutes before he 
spoke. Then: 

“Only Truth persists. All things are relative, and pass 
when they have seen their day. Truth is and all phenom¬ 
ena are Maya.* It is nothing, then, that what you have 
just seen must vanish. Benares has vanished ten times. 
The river below you has swallowed city on top of city, 
and the cavern we were in lies under the foundations of 
a temple whose steps the Ganges laved long before Egypt 
grew beside the Nile. This was the Temple of the Mys¬ 
teries before the Pyramids were built. And now it per¬ 
ishes. But Truth remains.” 

“Were the men we saw below there any of the Nine 
Unknown?” demanded Ramsden. 

“None of them,” Ghandava answered, looking him 
full in the face. “The men you saw are chelas. You will 
never see the Nine Unknown.” 

He was growing restless, for Ghandava. There was 


♦Delusion. 



334 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


still the air of contact with eternity that made him so 
courteous and earned respect for him without his claim¬ 
ing it. But there was a subtle change, nevertheless, 
though he waited to speak again until he had their abso¬ 
lute attention. Then: 

“The appointed time is now. I will instruct Mr. Jer¬ 
emy and those who are to work with him. Are you two 
ready ?” 

Ramsden and Narayan Singh met each other’s eyes 
and nodded gravely. 

“There is a chela below, who will lead you to the 
place where the Kali-worshipers make ready. He will 
leave you there. Gauri, in a minute, taking words from 
my mouth, will give you a message to deliver. They will 
believe the message, but will keep you with them unless 
they are more mad than there is reason to believe. There 
are grades of madness. Theirs is familiar, and under¬ 
stood. All then that will remain for you to do will be to 
persuade them to watch Mr. Jeremy, and to follow him 
to the woman. You will be cared for. Play your parts, 
tell only truth, say no more than you must, and remember 
you are rendering a service to humanity.” 

“Nevertheless, I will take my sword with me,” an¬ 
nounced Narayan Singh. 



CHAPTER XXI 

“my house is clean again!” 

I T WAS noon when Narayan Singh and Ramsden, fol¬ 
lowing a chela fifty years of age, chose what shadows 
were available in streets that baked like ovens between 
the stifling walls. The chela led them past an opening 
in a carved wall and gave the agreed signal, passing on 
as if unconscious of them. They turned and walked 
boldly into a ruinous temple, whose floor was deep with 
the dung of sacred bulls and whose only light was from 
little oil-dishes swung by wires from a roof invisible in 
gloom. 

As the eyes grew used to the dark they were aware 
of the big bronze man in yellow who had been their pris¬ 
oner, standing with his back to an inner-door with arms 
folded over his breast. They could see the white teeth 
glistening between thick lips, and the whites of his eyes 
with a glow behind them. 


335 



336 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


He in no way resembled a spider, yet Jeff thought of 
him as one. Imagination painted in the web. He looked 
as if he expected them and, saying nothing, beckoned, 
with his other hand behind him on the handle of the 
wooden door. When they were near enough he threw 
the door open and stood aside to let them pass in. 

Jeff led the way with the nerves of his neck all ting¬ 
ling in expectation of a silken handkerchief from 
ambush. The only thought in his head just then was 
whether his neck-muscles might not be strong enough to 
resist the handkerchief for the necessary fraction of a 
second until his fists could come in play. Imagination ! 
For in step behind him strode the Sikh, who, if nothing 
more, would have given the alarm in time. 

They were in a round room lighted by kerosene lan¬ 
terns and scant rays filtered through old sacking 
stretched across openings in the gloom overhead. The 
walls were the base of a dome, whose arch was dimly 
visible, and around the walls not less than seventy men in 
yellow sat facing the center, where a plain stone platform 
a yard high stood in the midst of pillars that rose up in 
the form of a pentagon into the dark—a pillar to the 
apex of each angle. 

They wore no masks, but the faces of all alike were 
stamped with evil and it would have been next to impos¬ 
sible to memorize the varying features. Proud, confi¬ 
dent, deliberate crime was the key-note according unity, 
and it might have been four-score reflections of one face 
for all that a man could remember otherwise. The enor¬ 
mous bronze man leered at Jeff, thrusting his face so 
close that it was all that Jeff could do to refrain from 
punching him again; but all he did was to lead Jeff and 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


3 37 


Narayan Singh to the platform, where he left them to 
face whichever way they chose. 

“You may sit down!” said a voice in English. 

But they continued standing. To have sat or squatted 
would have betrayed the long sword under the Sikh’s 
smock—their only weapon. Jeff had left his automatic 
behind on Ghandava’s advice, since—as Ghandava 
phrased it—“it is easier not to kill when the means are 
absent. He who interferes with no man’s karma is wisest.” 

They turned around, peering through the pillars to 
discover from which face the voice had come. He who 
had spoken waited until they both faced him, then spoke 
again— 

“Where is SHE?’’ 

He was a little man—the smallest in the room, and 
his voice was as tiny and mean as his English accent 
was ludicrous, stressing each syllable, querulous, excited, 
full of a kind of schoolmaster authority. 

“She sent us,” Jeff answered, and there was silence 
for the space of half a minute while they all considered 
the reply. Then: 

“That may be so,” a voice said from across the room. 
“How else should they know this place?” 

“Why did she send you ?” asked the little man. 

He appeared to be in haste for information. Jeff 
obliged him. 

“She said to me and to this other man: 'Obey me, 
and be rewarded. Tell those whom you will find in the 
place I name to follow you to where a fakir in the robe 
of Kali is performing feats. Follow the fakir to wherever 
he goes. He will lead to the place of the secrets you two 
men have seen.’ ” 


338 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“You have seen? What have you seen? They say 
they have seen!” 

He translated the information into another tongue, 
and there was a chorus of exclamations. Then the little 
man said again— 

“What have you seen?” 

Jeff told him: “We saw the gold turn liquid and drop 
on the green anvil. We saw it turn to blinding light with 
a great explosion. We saw the place behind the wall, 
where the secret is and the men prepare it. Blit we only 
saw one bar of gold.” 

“Bah! Bah! Who cares for the bars of gold if we 
have the secret! Where is this place?” 

“The gold-light blinded us,” Jeff answered. “We 
were led. But the fakir knows the way.” 

“How should he know?” 

“He can make the dead talk,” Jeff answered with 
perfect irrelevance, and there was another pause while 
they considered that. 

Narayan Singh nudged Jeff. A man who had risen 
from the wall was walking toward them. He came close 
and looked into their faces, all unconscious of the sword 
that trembled on the Sikh's thigh. They recognized their 
first prisoner whom Grim had let go. Without a word 
he returned to his place by the wall and then, standing : 

“That is so,” he said. “These are the same men. 
Their fakir makes the dead speak, having stolen that se¬ 
cret from the Nine or learned it from the books of Cyp¬ 
rian. One of them slew Kansa, our leader in Delhi, and 
they brought the corpse a distance in the cart with me. 
In the presence of all who were in the cart, Kansa spoke 
to me, being dead, bidding me obey these people.” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


339 


He sat down. His speech, too, was received in silence. 

“Why does she not come to us?” asked the man with 
the squeaky voice at last. And Jeff, primed an hour be¬ 
fore by Gauri picking words from Ghandava’s lips, was 
ready with the answer: 

“She said if we would help her, we may become 
as you, members of your order, sharing in all things. So 
we help. It was she who went before us into the place 
where gold becomes light. She said she will be there 
waiting, only we must come soon.” 

“What sign did she give?” the big, bronze man de¬ 
manded with a sneer. 

And for answer to that Jeff threw into the lap of the 
little man with the squeaky voice a golden skull twisted 
from the end of a necklace that morning in spite of 
Gaud's protests. The little man considered it a minute. 
Then: 

“This is true,” he said at last. “She would not have 
told the secret signs. See, all of you!” 

And he sent the gold skull passing around the circle 
from hand to hand, until it returned to his again. 

It was as clear as twice two, even to Jeffs ponderous 
intellect, that these men were not being taken by surprise. 
Some one had been there already—some one at Ghanda- 
va's instigation probably—warning what they could ex¬ 
pect. They were like men strained to the start,of a race, 
so keyed up by expectation that caution was irksome and 
at most perfunctory. 

However, there followed a debate, because some main¬ 
tained that one of the messengers ought to be kept prison^ 
er while individuals should be sent with the other to in¬ 
vestigate the fakir and report. The majority were for 


340 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


obeying the summons immediately. They said She was a 
seeress and they said other things about her, that would 
not look well between the covers of a book, but that ex¬ 
plained a great deal of their ritual and superstition. And 
at last the prisoner whom Ali had kept without water got 
up on his feet. 

Jeff broke into a sweat, and Narayan Singh drew in 
breath sharply between his teeth, for on this man's tem¬ 
per—so Ghandava said—more depended than was good 
to contemplate. 

But it seemed he was not so revengeful against Ali as 
to offset that against success: he spoke fluently in a 
tongue that not even Narayan Singh knew, apparently 
urging them to obey the summons and make haste— 
touching his own breast, as a man might who argues that 
his judgment of a situation was more trustworthy than 
others. They appeared to yield. Then the big bronze 
man who had acted janitor raised another point. 

He, too, used the secret language but his argument 
was plain enough. He demanded that Jeff and Narayan 
Singh be tied and put in his charge. That was agreed to. 
He had copper-wire in his hand in readiness to tie their 
wrists together, but the other man who had been prisoner 
forestalled him with thick twine. He refused to tie their 
hands behind their backs, as the other wanted to, arguing 
that that would attract attention passing through the 
streets, but lashed Jeffs right wrist to Narayan Singh's 
left. Then some one gave them a basket to carry between 
them with a cloth thrown over it so that their wrists were 
hid.den. 

There was no more said. The man who had tied them 
lost apparent interest and mingled with the others. The 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


341 


big bronze man leered threateningly in Jeff’s face and 
pointed toward the door, following about one stride be¬ 
hind with the evident intention of killing at the first 
suspicion of trickery, and the others filed out one by one 
in solemn procession led by the smallest man of all, who 
had spoken first. 

Seventy men in single file, headed by two stalwarts 
carrying a basket between them, would arouse comment 
anywhere but in Benares. There, there are fifty more as¬ 
tonishing processions on almost any day of the year, and 
all are so absorbed about the business of their own escape 
from Maya that none disturbs himself about the other 
man’s affairs. They were not even noticed. If one thing 
about them were remarkable it was that they excited no 
remarks, despite the yellow smocks and the caste-mark of 
their dreadful goddess; and when they filed through a 
gate into a temple-yard and vanished they passed from 
the mind of the crowd as well. 

It was a yard like any of a hundred in that city of 
clustered shrines. Four walls, carved deep with the for¬ 
gotten stories of a thousand gods, enclosed an oblong 
space paved with heavy blocks in front of a temple whose 
every inch was carved in high relief—and all so black 
with age and dirt that none might read what legend it em¬ 
bodied. It was hidden lore, as safe from public knowl¬ 
edge as the books whose ashes lay in Cyprian’s kiln, or 
as the Mysteries of the Nine themselves. 

But on the temple steps in front of the portico a part 
w'as being enacted that any one might interpret how he 
chose. 

A fakir smeared with ashes, and as nearly naked as 
the law permits, with more meat on his well-ribbed frame 


342 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


than the ordinary run of fakirs boast, was doing tricks 
with three skulls before a spell-bound gathering of non¬ 
descripts. It was amusing stuff, and the effect on the 
audience was like champagne, laughter being ten times 
welcome in a place where all else is so serious as in 
Benares. 

For a while he would keep the three skulls circling in 
the air in the way that any common juggler can contrive; 
but then, with both arms suddenly extended to th^ir 
limit, he would cause the game to cease and the skulls 
came to a dead rest facing the audience, one on the 
palm of each extended hand and the third on his plain 
black turban. 

Then each skull talked to each, or tossed amusing 
scraps of wisdom to the audience. 

It was perfect foolery, so masterfully done that folly 
seemed no part of it. To an audience asking only to 
believe, and dreading more than anything to criticize, it 
was inspired—miraculous—in keeping with the place— 
undoubtedly contrived by unseen Powers. 

The advent of the seventy in yellow, with two stal¬ 
warts bearing a basket at their head, was so plainly a 
religious portent that the audience, already enraptured, 
now gave double credence—a condition that reverted on 
the seventy, causing them, if not to believe in the fakir’s 
occult powers, at least to credit his authority. 

The fakir set the jawless skulls again in motion and 
the seventy sat down to see. Then a fat man with a 
naked stomach, his sanctity expressed by ashes, and a 
pink silk turban crowning all, came and sat in front of 
the fakir, below him on the paving stones, facing both 
him and the audience. And while the three skulls 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


343; 


bobbed and circled in air the fat man spoke in Hindu- 
stanee, which was the only language likely to be under¬ 
stood by more than a handful of any Benares audience. 

“Hear what she says!” he whined in a nasal sing¬ 
song. “Who is she? Let any ask who dares! Where is, 
she? Let him tell, who can find her! What says she? 
The skulls will tell! Now listen!” 

They ceased from circling in air and rested as be¬ 
fore on the fakir's head and his extended hands. The 
fakir's ashen face was motionless, and no breath seemed 
to come and go now through his slightly-parted lips. 
Only his head jerked suddenly from side to side from 
one skull to the other, so that all eyes followed his. He 
appeared to be wondering as much as they did at the 
dead things’ hollow voices. 

Hollow they were—maybe to cover mispronunciation, 
and croaking, as may be forgiven dead things. And as 
each one spoke, it moved, not much, but enough to sug-. 
gest an unseen lower jaw—although if the fakir's hands 
moved too no one observed it. Not even his head seemed 
to nod, to account for the movement of the skull that 
rested on it. The fakir said never a word. 

“I am the skull of Akbar!” said the left-hand skull. 

“I am the skull of Iskander!” replied the right-hand 
one. 

“And ye were two fools!” croaked the upper, all eyes 
watching it as the fakir turned his upward. 

“I had gold in my day!” announced the Akbar skull. 

“I had more! I had more!” the thing that named it¬ 
self Iskander answered. And the audience thrilled. They 
were Hindus. Neither of those famous kings had been,, 
of their faith. 


344 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


“Where is the gold now ?” croaked the upper skull. 

“I buried mine!” said Akbar. 

“I buried mine!” Iskander answered. 

“Where ?” demanded the skull on top. 

“I forget!” said the right-hand skull. 

“I lost the secret !” said the one on the left. 

“I keep the secret!” croaked the upper one. 

“Who art thou?” asked the Akbar skull. 

“I am a woman in a leopard-skin! I am she who 
knows the secret! They who have the right should fol¬ 
low me!” 

“Yes! Whoever is not afraid of the spirits that guard 
the secret, follow!” piped the fat man; and the greater 
part of the audience trembled, glancing sidewise at one 
another and remaining seated. They were no such fools 
as to trespass into ancient secrets. Some began to run 
away, fearing sorcery. 

Tossing the skulls from hand to hand the fakir dis¬ 
appeared into the temple. The courtyard emptied. The 
men in yellow, led by Jeff and Narayan Singh carrying 
the basket, followed the fakir one by one. Another of 
India’s every-day marvels was a thing gone by, to be dis¬ 
cussed and magnified and finally forgotten or else woven 
into the fabric of religious legend. 

Jeff and Narayan Singh walked swiftly. They 
wanted to speak, but did not dare, for they could not out¬ 
distance the bronze man at their heels; and the others 
came equally fast, breaking into a run as the fakir dis¬ 
appeared down an opening in the hollow-shaped floor 
of a dark chamber. 

The fakir was all alone, and seemed in haste. (No 
sign of the fat impresario.) In darkness they could hear 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


345 


the fakir's naked feet shuffling along an echoing tunnel, 
and the big bronze man urged Jeff and Narayan Singh 
to run. Jeff kicked something, and a hollow rattle an¬ 
nounced a skull bouncing away in the dark ahead of him. 
The bronze giant’s toes struck another one, and a man 
somewhere behind them kicked the third. The fakir had 
abandoned his dead oracles! He appeared to be in full 
flight. 

That was too much for the giant. He thrust Nara¬ 
yan Singh aside and rushed by, following by ear, bel¬ 
lowing back to the crowd to hurry after him. And as the 
first half-dozen forced themselves between Narayan 
Singh and the right-hand wall the blade of a knife 
passed between his wrist and Ramsden’s. The thongs 
that held them together parted, and a voice said: 

“Wisely, sahibs! Hold the basket as before!” 

They turned to look, but could not see. The tunnel 
was alive with men who hurried by them, until every 
man of the seventy had passed, excepting one. He 
tugged at them. 

“Now turn back!” he urged excitedly. 

“Who are you?’’ Jeff asked, but he could not an¬ 
swer. The Sikh had him by the throat and was burning 
the darkness with his eyes, trying to recognize him. 

“Quick! Who are you?” Jeff repeated. 

As he spoke the faint reflection of a far-off flash of 
light lifted the darkness, like summer-lightning. Simul¬ 
taneously Jeff and the Sikh recognized the prisoner 
whom Ali had kept dry. He was scared—in pain be¬ 
cause of fingers clutching at his throat—but unmistak¬ 
able. The Sikh let go. 

“Quick! Come away!” he gasped, pulling at them. 


346 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


Both men answered with the curt laugh that ex¬ 
presses resolution but no humor. They did not propose 
to leave friend fakir -Jeremy alone in the van of that 
stampede. 

“Where is Chullunder Ghose?” Jeff blurted. The 
babu was to have been on hand to keep them posted. 

“Ali? Where is Ali?” Narayan Singh demanded— 
presumably of the gods who order men’s affairs. 

“I don’t know! Something has gone wrong! Ghan- 
dava sahib said—I promised him-” 

They did not stay to listen. 

“Forward, sahib!” urged Narayan Singh, and the 
whistling air announced that he had drawn steel from 
under the yellow smock. 

“Fools!” said the voice of a man in yellow, but they 
left him standing. 

It was blind work—blind as Jeremy’s must have been. 
Holding each other they charged at top speed into night 
in which they could see nothing but the blood behind 
their own eyes. Once another flash in front of them lifted 
the darkness for a second; but it was only as if it were 
the echo of a strong light; it made matters worse by 
confusing the darkness, filling imagination with a mil¬ 
lion terrors. 

Then something—some one—animal or man—in 
headlong flight toward them, the noise of his hurrying 
feet all mixed in the volleying echoes of the stampede 
on ahead! Impossible to guess! It might be the tail 
end of the mob returning. Echo of another flash—then 
din incredible that drove the ear-drums inward—then it 
—he—who—whatever it was diving headlong under the 
swipe of the Sikh’s sword and clinging to their legs to 
save himself! 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


347 


“For God’s sake!” 

“Jeremy!” 

“Rammy, old top! Quick! Help me up! No—® 
stand here! Stop them! Some’ll come back! Some-* 
thing’s wrong!” 

“What is it?” 

“God knows! Juice didn’t work or something! Half 
of ’em dead and the other half milling around the cave 
to find things ! Pitch black—blazing light—pitch black 
again—and every one crazy! Got a knife, Narayan 
Singh ? *’ 

“A saber, sahib!” 

“Good. Swat them!” 

It was time! Another flash, fiercer than any yet, 
and a blast of hot wind followed by the scurrying of feet. 
The Sikh sprang forward, and they heard the swish and 
thump of his weapon as he struck down three men in 
succession. Then a scuffle, and the Sikh’s cry of warn¬ 
ing as a man burst by him. 

Jeff charged—blind—bull-headed—at an enemy he 
could only hear—and in a second was at death-grips with 
the giant who had acted janitor! He recognized the fel¬ 
low’s grip again—the deadly enormous strength and the 
python-hug, crushing and releasing, crushing and re¬ 
leasing. Then, in another of those echo-flashes he could 
see his face leering with thick lips—♦— 

“Quick! Oh God! That’s the end!” yelled Jeremy. 
“Come, you fellows! Water! For the love of-” 

He never knew afterward whether he saw the end 
first or sensed it coming. There was a blinding flash 
and a din beyond imagining—then wind—a hot blast— 
scouring out the tunnel, driving them in front of it like 



348 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


wads down a gun-barrel, until it ceased in what seemed 
vacuum. Lungs ached, and they retched; but a blast of 
air ice-cold by contrast, came whistling back, providing 
breath, but no other surcease, for they heard like a flood 
at war with fire the seething roar of water, and the 
earth’s foundations seemed to shake beneath them. 

“Are you there?” yelled Jeremy, groping wildly for 
his friends. 

Narayan Singh gripped him by the shoulder, and the 
two turned back for Jeff. They stumbled on him, 
wrapped in death-grip with his adversary. The Sikh’s 
foot struck home into the bronze giant’s stomach. Jeff’s 
fist, breaking from a python-hold, descended like a pole¬ 
ax on the giant’s neck, and in a second the three were 
careering headlong for the tunnel’s end with the pressure 
of a full gale and the roar of a boiling flood so near be¬ 
hind them that in their spines they knew the very feel of 
death. By the arms the two dragged Jeff waist-deep out 
of surging water that followed and swamped the hollow 
temple floor, and the three fell all together gasping in 
the sunshine on the portico. 

There presently Chullunder Ghose, still smeared with 
ashes and half-naked, came to them with the erstwhile 
prisoner in yellow trying not to appear to walk with him. 
The babu was triumphant, the man in yellow sheepish, 
hiding fear under a veneer of pride. 

“Where is Ali?” gasped Narayan Singh. 

“Gone!” said Chullunder Ghose. “Sahibs, all is lost 
but honor!” Nonchalantly he toyed with one great emer¬ 
ald ear-stud. “Am unfortunate babu, but there are com¬ 
pensations. Devil, being slow on foot presumably, takes 
hindermost fugitive who is too fat to run—sometimes! 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 349 

There are exceptions. Am same. Exceptional this 
time—very!” 

'Where has Ali gone?” 

“Where does flame go when any person blows out 
candle? To where it came from, I suspect. Verb. sap. 
Ali did come from Sikunderam, same being suitable en¬ 
vironment for gent of his kidney. Ali said to me: ‘May 
Allah do so to this son of my mother, and more likewise, 
if those sahibs are not asking for destruction. I have 
lost too many sons. What shall I do about it? There 
will be police investigation and many corpses to explain.' 
—And this babu, being abject individual, had access of 
enlightenment, plus memory of much experience with 
legal luminaries. Am known to the police. Same is 
reciprocal. Police are also known to me. Nice, isn’t it?” 
he asked, turning the emerald toward the sunlight. 

He was ordered bluntly to explain himself, and to 
cut the explanation short. 

“Am not explainable,” he answered. “Am portion 
of riddle of universe, but capable of genius on occasion. 
It occurred to this babu that you are very ballistic sahibs 
—oh yes, very—likely to be spat forth same as bullets 
from throat of any cataclysm. Yes—am optimist. Hav¬ 
ing assisted Jeremy sahib to juggle with skulls in temple 
compound, am henceforth capable of believing anything 
—even that Jeremy sahib will survive underworld explo¬ 
sions. Ergo— sahibs , there is no hurry; I tell you Ali 
has vanished; so has everybody!—ergo, it occurred to 
this babu most opportunely that scapegoat is needed to 
obsess intellect of seriously exercised police, who will be 
spurred to indiscreet enquiries by higher-ups in club 
armchairs. Who better than Ali? What solution bet- 


350 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


ter than elopement to Sikunderam? No sooner thought 
than said—for a price! Good counsel in emergency is 
surely worth two emeralds, but an Afghan is more 
thrifty than Scotchman, Jew, Armenian and Greek com¬ 
bined, plus Yankee trader thrown in. He would only 
part with one! Pretty, isn’t it? Worth, what would 
you say? How much?” 

“Come now, come—what happened?” Ramsden 
demanded. 

“Solution happened, sahib, this babu advising, Ali 
making much haste to elope with lady. Thus. The 
Gauri knew too much. Too much knowledge, in brain 
of lady of her mode of living, leading to blackmail sooner 
than later always, same leading to inveiglement in nets 
of the police,—distance should therefore lend enchant¬ 
ment to otherwise somewhat faded charms of said en¬ 
chantress. Nicht wahrf She has dowry—less one 
emerald, surrendered as extremely meagre fee to this 
babu, who explained to her that unless she shall hide her 
charms in Sikunderam with Ali, who will make her, 
perhaps and perhaps not, queen of many cutthroats, the 
police will inevitably capture her and take the jewelry. 
And to Ali this babu remarked that unless he shall take 
the Gauri with him, she will most certainly betray to the 
police his weakness for butchering inoffensive members 
of Hindu religious sect. And as for the maid, let Ali’s 
son take her, she also knowing too much. Advice was 
accepted—on spot—instantly. Three-fold solution— 
very excellent. Ali has a wife, who has a dowry. One 
son has a wife, who has youth and good looks. The 
other surviving son has an example. They are gone— 
northward. Can you beat it? as Jimgrmi would re¬ 
mark.” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


351 


“Where are King and Grim?” demanded Jeff. 

“Hunting for me, sahib. They are very angry. I can 
not imagine why. They suspect me of complicity in 
flight of Ali. Most unreasonable. I am here to beg your 
honors’ confidence—and some additional emolument, 
not as inducement—oh, no, most unnecessary!—but by 
way of reward in advance for holding my tongue! Am 
not altruist,” he added significantly. 

“What do you want here?” demanded Jeremy, look¬ 
ing straight into the face of the erstwhile prisoner. 

“Protection!” he answered, rather humbly. “Bhima 
Ghandava has disappeared.” 

“What of it?” asked Jeremy. 

“He is that member of the Nine Unknown whom I 
was to have killed! I betrayed my party to him, think¬ 
ing it better that they should all perish. But now Ghan¬ 
dava sahib has disappeared, and I have no friends!” 

Chullunder Ghose tapped him on the shoulder. 

“Have you money?” he demanded. “No? Jewelry? 
No? Well—am charitable. This babu will give advice 
in forma pauperis. Go and be a hermit, which is proper 
course for individual with aching conscience and no 
friends! Go! Be off! In words of Hamlet, stay not—” 

But the man in yellow was already gone; perhaps he 
was afraid of King and Grim, angry, sweating, baffled, 
who came hurrying across the temple courtyard. 

“Bhima Ghandava has disappeared!” King an¬ 
nounced out of breath, and then listened while Ramsden 
related what had happened. 

They went and pounded on the door of the house 
where they had been lodged, but none answered, and 
they desisted at last in fear of the police. However, the 


352 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


police were all busy on the waterfront, where an ancient 
ruin on which fakirs used to stand in turns, had vanished 
into the river—by earthquake, as the newspapers asserted 
afterward—although no seismographs recorded any 
earthquake in Benares. 

There was nothing to be done but to return to Delhi, 
and no man but Cyprian to whom they dared to go. To 
have asked anybody else to obtain European clothing for 
them would have led too- surely to enquiry. They 
searched for him first at Ghandava’s house, but found 
that empty and deserted. Cyprian was back in his own 
home, being nursed by Manoel, who looked ashamed— 
repentant. 

“The rascal!” said Cyprian. “The rogue! The im¬ 
pudent, incorrigible sinner! You remember, there was 
a front page missing from one of my occult books that 
he had hidden under a blanket in the pantry ? Well, he, 
Manoel had torn it out. I found him—where do you 
think? I found him in a rear room in a back-street 
starting a new religion with the aid of that page of 
symbols! Rascal! But he is not altogether bad. He has 
been a comfort. See, my sons—my house is clean again !” 

“Blut why did you leave Ghandava’s house?” asked 
Jeremy. 

“They came and took all the furniture away!” 

“Who did?” 

“I don’t know. People I had never seen before. They 
provided me with a carriage to come home in, but gave 
no explanations. I hope Ghandava is not in difficulties. 
He was always a courteous host and a considerate friend, 
but there is only one possible result of dabbling in 
occultism and the black arts.” 


THE NINE UNKNOWN 


353 


“We heard,” said Jeremy, “that he is one of the 
NINE—one of the actual NINE UNKNOWN.” 

“Oh, no,” said Cyprian. “Oh, no! I don’t believe 
it. Whoever the Nine Unknown are, they are devils— 
men without souls! Bhima Ghandava is a gentleman. 
No, no, he can’t be one of them.” 

“Nevertheless, Pop, I believe he is!” said Jeremy. 

“So do I,” said King and Grim together. 

“I’m pretty nearly sure of it,” said Ramsden cau¬ 
tiously. “Remember: he said that what we saw was 
merely a trifle—nothing compared to all the other knowl¬ 
edge of the Nine Unknown.” 

“My son, it is easy to say things,” said Cyprian. 

“Aye,” exclaimed Narayan Singh, “and difficult to 
know things. But I know. And no man can persuade 
me I do not know. Bhima Ghandava is one of them.” 

“Knowledge,” said Chullunder Ghose, rubbing his fat 
stomach, “what is knowledge for, if not for use ? Myself, 
am pragmatist. Myself, am satisfied that sahibs wisely 
trusting this babu to hold his tongue will provide same 
abject individual with continuous employment at a gen¬ 
erous remuneration. No, sahibs, no! Am good sport! 
No—no threat intended! Blackmail not included in my 
compendium of ways and means! Am gentleman, ac¬ 
cepting sportsmanlike standard of West and looking for¬ 
ward to reward—” 

“In hell, I’m afraid, unless you mend your ways, my 
friend!” said Cyprian. 


The End 


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